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Moscú (AFP)
The Russian Sputnik V vaccine protects against “all known variants” of the new coronavirus, including the contagious Delta, responsible for a virulent wave of covid-19 in that country, its creator defended on Monday.
The director of the Gamaleia center that developed the Sputnik V vaccine, Alexandre Guintsbourg, stated that the double injection of this drug “protects against all currently known variants, from the British to the Delta variant, the Indian variant.”
This strain, considered more contagious, is behind 90% of the new infections registered in Moscow, according to its mayor Sergei Sobianin.
The capital is the epicenter of the second wave of the virus in Russia and has broken daily records of infections since the start of the pandemic.
Guintsbourg’s statements seek to boost the vacillating vaccination campaign in Russia, which runs into the mistrust and reluctance of its population.
After promising a lottery for a car among those who got a dose, the Moscow mayor announced last week that he would impose mandatory vaccination on service sector workers.
For its part, Saint Petersburg, the second city in the country also exposed to a sharp increase in cases, announced that it wanted to vaccinate 65% of local officials by August.
Russia is the country with the most deaths from covid-19 in Europe, with 129,801 deaths according to the government, a balance that the Rosstat statistical agency raises to 270,000 since the start of the pandemic.
© 2021 AFP
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