Algeria plans to launch the production of Sputnik V this September, announced Dr. Lotfi Benbaxmed, Minister for the Algerian Pharmaceutical Industry, about a week ago. He noted that it was the Russian party who proposed to transfer the technology.
According to the minister, the vaccine will be manufactured by the Algerian Groupe SAIDAL (80% state participation) in partnership with the Gamaleya National Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology — Russian developer of Sputnik V. He also noted that an as yet unspecified Indian laboratory would participate.
According to the Minister of Health of Algeria Abderrahmane Benbouzid, by the end of April, Algeria would receive 920k more doses of the Russian vaccine. Algeria has already begun the vaccination campaign using Sputnik V back in January 2021. Later, the country received AstraZeneca/Oxford and Sinopharm.
Meanwhile, laboratories in the USA have tested Sputnik V against the South African variant of COVID-19. The article published in medRxiv has not yet been certified by peer-review. Still, the scientists highlight that though the general efficacy of Sputnik V is lower than against the original strain, the vaccine is able to offer protection from the severe form of the disease.
The Director of the Gamaleya Center Alexander Ginzburg has tentatively reported that the efficacy of Sputnik V against the South African variant of COVID-19 is twice as high as that of other vaccines available.