Belarusian Company Says In Talks With Russia On Full Cycle Production Of COVID-19 Vaccine

MINSK (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 25th February, 2021) Sergey Kazakevich, the director general of state-owned enterprise Belfarmprom Holding Management Company, said talks were underway with a Russian company to organize a full cycle production of a vaccine against the novel coronavirus in Belarus.

"The management company continues to work on localization of production of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine in the Republic of Belarus. In the coming days, the vaccine production from a semi-product will start at the premises of the Belmedpreparaty enterprise. In parallel, work continues with one of Russian companies to organize the full cycle production of the vaccine," Kazakevich said as quoted by the Belarusian Health Ministry's Telegram channel.

On Wednesday, Belarusian Health Minister Dmitry Pinevich said that from March there were plans to bottle the Sputnik V vaccine at the capacities of pharmaceutical enterprises in Belarus; the volume of production will amount to 500,000 doses per month.

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak of the new coronavirus infection COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020. At the end of December 2020, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) announced that Belarus was the first after Russia to launch vaccination of the population against COVID-19 with Russia's Sputnik V vaccine.