French mayor pre-orders Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine for resort city

PARIS, March 30./TASS/. Mayor Christian Estrosi of Nice said on Tuesday that he had pre-ordered a batch of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine for the resort city. Speaking on BFMTV, the mayor said that he expected "the vaccine to get approval from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in June." The mayor also noted that Sputnik V was already in use in dozens of countries. Earlier, Estrosi emphasized the need for getting permission for the use of Sputnik V in France as soon as possible. According to Mayor Estrosi, the vaccination drive is proceeding pretty well in those countries that have given the green light to the Russian vaccine. Commenting on vaccine certificates that are expected to be available for citizens of EU countries from June 15, the mayor stated that he saw no point in waiting for their introduction in summer. "Why wait? I’m in favor of having these passports in circulation immediately," he stressed. The mayor of Nice also urged an early vaccination of schoolteachers in order to curb the spread of the virus in educational establishments. Russia was the world’s first to register an anti-coronavirus vaccine on August 11, 2020. The vaccine, developed by the Russian Health Ministry’s Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology, was dubbed Sputnik V. It is a vector vaccine based on the human adenovirus. In early February 2020, The Lancet, a world-acclaimed medical journal, published the results of the third phase of Sputnik V’s clinical tests. The jab has proved to be among the world’s safest and most efficient. Thus, its efficacy is estimated at 91.6% and 91.8% among volunteers older than 60. Ninety-eight percent of volunteers developed antibodies to the coronavirus. For now, the European Union has approved the use of four vaccines, namely, BioNTech-Pfizer, Moderna, Oxford-AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson. Read more