Argentine Production of Sputnik V Vaccines Passes Russian Inspection

Argentine Health Minister Carla Vizzotti announced on June 2, as reported by Telam, that Russia’s Gamaleya Institute, makers of the Sputnik V vaccine, has confirmed the quality control of Sputnik V samples produced at Argentina’s Richmond Labs. Gamaleya has confirmed “satisfactory quality control” of each one of the three batches of each one of the components of the vaccine, Vizzotti said, which means that Argentina “will now be part of the vaccine’s production chain.” Expectation is that the two major active ingredients of the vaccine will arrive in a flight from Moscow next week, and then mass production can begin at Richmon’s lab. Infobae reported June 2 that the contract signed with the Russia Direct Investment Fund, and with the India-based Hetero lab, with which Richmond has had a strategic alliance for years, includes construction of a state-of-the-art plant in Pilar (Buenos Aires), which will, in a second stage of production, be able to produce vaccine for export to South and Central America, “and to the world.” Richmond is the first Ibero-American lab authorized to produce Sputnik V.