Colombia’s Health Minister Fernando Ruiz confirmed on Monday that it is moving forward an agreement with Russia’s Gamaleya Institute to acquire Sputnik V vaccine, Reuters reported.
“We have a confidentiality agreement with (Russia’s Gamaleya Institute),” Ruiz told the news agency in a telephone interview. “We’re talking with them, but really with the quantity we have assured right now…we don’t have an urgency to proceed.”
The lack of rush regarding the acquisition of Russia’s Sputnik vaccine is related to several deals Colombia already has in place with other pharmaceutical companies.
The country is set to receive vaccine doses from Pfizer, BioNTech, AstraZeneca, Moderna and Sinovac; in addition to having an agreement with the World Health Organization-backed COVAX mechanism. Such deals leave Colombia with over 61 million vaccine doses, enough to inoculate 35.2 million people.
Ruiz said there is no estimate yet of how many Sputnik V doses the country would receive in a potential deal and added that Colombia also has confidentiality agreements with China’s Sinopharm, Cansino, and India’s Serum Institute.
Colombia will begin a mass vaccination campaign on February 20 and expects to inoculate 70% of its population this year, in an attempt to achieve herd immunity.
The Sputnik V vaccine has recorded a 91.6% efficacy rate against COVID-19, according to peer-reviewed results from its phase 3 clinical trial, as reported The Lancet international medical journal this Tuesday morning.