The United States announced last week that it would soon open its doors to foreign travelers vaccinated against the coronavirus. However, the Sputnik V vaccine is not within their plans.
Sputnik V: Hundreds of thousands of Russians could be directly affected
But the new rules, which will take effect in November, also appear to exclude many people who consider themselves fully immunized, including millions who have received two doses of the Sputnik V vaccine from Russia.
Hundreds of thousands of Russians could be directly affected. Despite cold diplomatic relations and limited demand for international travel, an estimated 300,000 Russians visited the United States in 2019.
Latest year for which figures are available, according to the American Travel Association
The vaccine was intended to be a powerful pandemic diplomacy tool.
More broadly, the US plan is another blow to the makers of Sputnik V, which Moscow has proudly proclaimed as the first registered coronavirus vaccine for use.
Although the vaccine was intended to be a powerful tool of pandemic diplomacy. Its limited overseas acceptance and slow delivery rates have left it behind not only Western vaccines but also those made by Chinese manufacturers.
“This is a big problem for Russian travelers and for people from other countries who have received Sputnik V.” So Judyth Twigg, a Virginia Commonwealth University professor who tracks public health in Russia, said about the new American rules in an email.
What the Russian Fund for Direct Investment Said
The Russian Fund for Direct Investment, the sovereign wealth fund that backed Sputnik V, said in a statement that the vaccine not only “has been approved in 70 countries where more than 4 billion people live, or more than half of the population. worldwide, but its efficacy and safety have been confirmed both during clinical trials and during the course of real-world use in several countries. “
“We oppose attempts to politicize the global fight against COVID-19 and discriminate against effective vaccines for short-term political or economic gain,” the statement continued.
What is the US plan?
The new US plan requires that most non-citizens seeking to enter the United States be vaccinated with vaccines approved for emergency use, either by the US Food and Drug Administration. Or the World Health Organization. That includes vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna, as well as injections developed by Chinese firms like Sinopharm and Sinovac.
The new American rules won’t just affect Russians. According to data from the Center for Innovation in Global Health at Duke University, around 448 million doses of Sputnik V have been purchased worldwide, with many of them destined for low-income countries.
Some governments have complained about slow deliveries from Russia. Limited travel options are likely to draw further criticism of the Russian drug.
“Russia squandered the opportunity to use this vaccine as a diplomatic tool,” Twigg said, citing production problems surrounding Sputnik.
The Russian embassy in Washington declined to comment on the new American policy.
Sputnik V is not the only vaccine that risks being left behind. Neither the FDA nor the WHO have licensed Covaxin from India, which has so far purchased 560 million doses, mostly in India.
People vaccinated with Covaxin may not be able to visit the United States in November. There have also been disputes with individual governments that did not accept some vaccines, such as Britain’s refusal to fully recognize the vaccines administered in many parts of the world.
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