Russian Embassy in US Urges Washington to Fight Coronavirus, Not Russian Vaccine

The Russian Embassy in Washington called on the US government to concentrate its attention on combating the coronavirus rather than opposing the Russian vaccine, reports Russian News Agency TASS.

"Don’t try to downplay President Putin’s constructive proposal to hold an online high-level conference shortly for countries interested in cooperation in the development of Covid19 vaccines," the embassy said in a Twitter post. "Save American lives. Fight Covid19 - not the Russian Vaccines."

The Embassy attached a message from the U.S. Department of State Spokesperson Morgan Ortagus, who expressed doubts about the effectiveness of the Russian at the same time, the Embassy published a text of a White House media briefing during which Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said that President Donald Trump did not rule out the possibility of using vaccines produced by other countries in the United States. When asked about the Russian and Chinese vaccines, the press secretary replied by quoting US President Donald Trump as saying that he would take his hat off to a country that produces "a vaccine that works."

In his speech to the UN General Assembly, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested holding "an online high-level conference shortly for countries interested in cooperation in the development of anti-coronavirus vaccines."

The US government has given $1.2 billion to the British-Swedish pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca, which is developing a vaccine in partnership with scientists from Oxford University ( UK). In addition, the Washington administration gave $486 million to the American biotechnology corporation Moderna and $456 million to the pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson for these purposes. Merck and Pfizer are also developing a coronavirus vaccine in the United States. In total, the US administration has invested $12 billion in these projects, according to the White House.

On 11 August, Russia became the first in the world to record a coronavirus vaccine called Sputnik V. The preparation was established by the Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology of the Russian Ministry of Health and passed clinical trials in June-July. It was created on a platform that had been used for the development of a number of other vaccines. According to the Russian Health Ministry, experience shows that such vaccines are capable of developing long-term immunity that lasts for up to two years. Head of the Russian Direct Investments Fund Kirill Dmitriev pointed out that Russia had received applications for more than 1 bln doses of the vaccine from 20 countries.