Russia stops producing CoviVac, EpiVacCorona vaccines due to absence of requests from regions - Rospotrebnadzor expert

MOSCOW. May 20 (Interfax) - Requests from the Russian regions for the supply of coronavirus vaccines are only being made for Sputnik V produced by the Russian Health Ministry's Gamaleya Center. The production of the vaccines CoviVac, manufactured by the Chumakov Center, and EpiVacCorona of the Vector Center have been suspended, Alexander Gorelov, deputy director for science of the Central Research Institute of Epidemiology operating under the Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing (Rospotrebnadzor), said.

"We have a situation where the regions are not making requests for other vaccines except for Sputnik V [...] As a result, the production of CoviVac and EpiVacCorona is suspended and I don't know if Convacell will appear," Gorelov said at the congress Orgzdrav on Friday.

Experts did not reach a common opinion on revaccination after the vaccines appeared, he said.

"We can't reach agreements on revaccination because essentially we need to have population studies to understand how long post-vaccination and post-infection immunity lasts. Over what kind of period of time revaccination should be done and who should be revaccinated. And with what vaccines," the expert said.

Gorelov said, citing experts, including Denis Logunov, deputy director of the Gamaleya Center, who is among the people who developed Sputnik V, that maximal protection against coronavirus occurs when various vaccines are combined.