Italy to be the first EU country to produce Russian Sputnik V vaccine

Italy to be the first EU country to make the Russian Sputnik V vaccine. Russia's Sputnik V vaccine for COVID-19 will be produced in Italy from July, the Italian-Russian Chamber of Commerce said Tuesday.

Italy will therefore enhance the first EU country to make the Russian vaccine, which is still following report by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

"The doses will be manufactured from July 2021 at the facilities of the Italian-Swiss pharmaceutical business Adienne in Lombardy in Caponago near Monza," Stefano Maggi, a media advisor at the Chamber, reported to media agencies. "Ten million vaccines will be manufactured between July 1 and January 1, 2022," Maggi stated, emphasizing that this is the "primary cooperation at European level for the creation of the Sputnik vaccine on EU territory."

Sputnik V has not yet won approval from the EU regulator, which started its review last week.

Russian officials say they are ready to give vaccines to 50 million Europeans beginning from June.

Many European Union countries, including Hungary and Slovakia, have begun offering the Russian vaccine without anticipating the EMA's approval.

One EMA official criticized the move as "playing Russian roulette," while Russia’s RDIF sovereign wealth fund threw the EU for its uncertain consent procedure.

Sputnik has now been passed in 46 nations, notwithstanding being initially met with skepticism in the West. According to The Lancet, a medical statement, the vaccine is 91.6% protective against significant forms of the disease.

Sputnik is a coronavirus vaccine created by the GAmaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology. The vaccine was registered on 11 August 2020 by the Ministry of Health, Russia, as the Gam-COVID-19 vaccine.

Gam-COVID-Vac was initially authorized for delivery in Russia on the preceding results of Phase I–II studies ultimately announced on 4 September 2020.

The quick permission in early August of Gam-COVID-Vac was answered with criticism in mass media and accelerated investigations in the scientific society whether this decision was explained in the absence of robust systematic research proving the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine.