Germany needs to purchase the Russian Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine. This was stated by the head of the German state of Thuringia Bodo Ramelov, quoted by Zeit.
According to the politician, the supply of the drug from Russia is “a great opportunity to quickly return to normal life.” “I call on the federal government to let the European Union understand that now it is necessary to order the required amount of vaccine from the manufacturers of Sputnik V,” he said.
Earlier it became known about an employee of an insurance company from Germany, Stefan Heilemann, who specially flew with his family to Russia for the Sputnik V vaccine. Prior to this, Thomas Mertens, the head of the German Permanent Vaccination Commission at the Robert Koch Institute, praised the work of Russian researchers and Sputnik V.
Sputnik V is the first registered Russian vaccine against coronavirus, it was created on the basis of adenovirus, in which the coronavirus gene is embedded. When it enters the cells, it forms proteins in them – they cause an immune response and promote the development of antibodies.
On the territory of the EU “Sputnik V” has not yet been registered, now the corresponding application is being considered by the regulator – the European Medicines Agency (EMA). In this regard, the countries of the union do not purchase the drug. Despite this, Slovakia received a shipment of Russian vaccine, which led to serious political divisions in the country.
More than 2.5 million people have been infected in Germany in the year since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Almost 73 thousand of the sick have died.
