Pakistan intends to purchase at least 10 million doses of the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine from Russia, Shavkat Ali Khan, Pakistan's ambassador to Moscow, said in an interview with TASS.
"The number I have heard of is at least 10 million doses of the vaccine we plan to buy from Russia," he said.
"We received the first vaccine from China, then Pfizer and Moderna vaccines under the COVAX program, and the third came from Russia. A few days ago, the authorities announced that Pakistan had already received 1 million doses of the Sputnik V vaccine," the diplomat explained.
He said Pakistan wants to produce Sputnik V and is discussing this possibility with Russia: "Pakistan has a very large population - over 200 million people - and we can't import all the vaccines. We have declared our interest in the production of Sputnik V, and the parties are discussing technical details. However, the priority at the moment is to purchase vaccines."
According to the ambassador, the Sputnik V vaccine has become "a victim of its success." "Everybody wants it, but you can't produce in that volume. So some of the vaccines have to be produced in countries with large populations. We plan to move in that direction, that's the next step," he believes.
"We congratulate Russia on this very important achievement of developing a vaccine so quickly that is so effective. And I think we were one of the first embassies whose employees were fully vaccinated with Sputnik V, which kept us out of trouble," the TASS interlocutor said.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: sputnikvaccine.com
Based on materials from TASS