European Commission says has no doubts in quality of Sputnik V vaccine

BRUSSELS. KAZINFORM The Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine «is, of course, a very good vaccine» and it is on the list of candidates for use in the EU, European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton said Wednesday, answering a question on shortage of vaccines in Europe.

«We at the EU have the biggest portfolio of vaccines, there are already four vaccines, and, hopefully, soon [there will be] five. There are ups and downs [in the shipment process], which unfortunately something that we see when we [are dealing with] such industrial capacity,» Breton said. «We have, of course, many other vaccines on the planet, which is good, because […] before the end of this summer, Europe will be vaccinated, US will be vaccinated, but altogether it would be only 10% of the population of the planet,» TASS reports.

«Among vaccine candidates, there is, of course, Sputnik. Sputnik is, of course, a very good vaccine, because Russians are pretty good scientists, and, of course, I wouldn’t have any reason to doubt that,» he added. «But, this being said, there seem to be some difficulties today to manufacture this vaccine, and that’s why we see a lot of requests to have some facilities in Europe to do it. Almost all our facilities are used today to manufacture the vaccines that have been agreed [upon]. But, when there is a reserve, I say - yes, we should help [with manufacturing].»