MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia has still not handed over all the information needed for its flagship Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine to be approved by the World Health Organisation because of differences in regulatory standards, the Kremlin said on Tuesday.
Moscow rushed to approve the Sputnik V shot for domestic use last year, but it has still not been certified by either the WHO or the European Medicines Agency, the EU’s drug regulator.
Asked what was causing the delay, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters the certification process was under way.
“There is indeed some information that needs to be provided for certification that we have not yet provided because we had a different understanding of what exactly the information should be and how it should be presented,” he said.
“We have different standards and so on. So we are gradually adapting to these requirements and we hope for a positive result from this work.”
Russia has approved four vaccines for use domestically and no other shots are available for use in the country. Some Russians have taken to travelling abroad to get vaccinated.
(Reporting by Dmitry Antonov; writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
