MOSCOW, March 16 — The Kremlin today denounced as “selfish” attempts to force countries to refuse certain coronavirus vaccines after a US government report said Washington had tried to persuade Brazil to reject Russia’s jab.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists who had asked about the report that as many vaccines as possible should be made available worldwide in order to defeat the virus.
“Such selfish attempts to force some countries to refuse whatever vaccines have no prospects, they harm people’s interests,” Peskov told reporters without confirming whether he was referring to Washington’s efforts in particular.
A report from the US Health and Human Services (HHS) department, available on its website, said Washington was working to “mitigate efforts” in the Americas by countries like Russia, Cuba and Venezeula to “increase their influence in the region to the detriment of US safety and security.”
As an example, the report noted that the HHS had worked “to persuade Brazil to reject the Russian Covid-19 vaccine,” but it did not give further details.
Moscow is “categorically against such pressure” and “the competition of vaccines,” Peskov told reporters.
“We believe that we must all join forces to reach as many people as possible with vaccinations,” he said.
His comments followed a statement on Twitter Monday by the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which financed the Sputnik V vaccine’s development, saying that “efforts to undermine vaccines are unethical and are costing lives”.
Some Western countries have been wary of Sputnik V—named after the Soviet-era satellite—over concerns the Kremlin would use it as a soft power tool to advance its interests.
Moscow registered the jab in August before large-scale clinical trials, but leading medical journal The Lancet has since said it is safe and over 90 percent effective.
Sputnik V has been registered in more than 50 countries, according to the RDIF, and Europe’s medicines regulator is considering approving the jab.
Brazil, which has the world’s second worst death toll from the coronavirus according to an AFP tally, has struggled to source enough vaccines for its population of 212 million people.
The South American country started its vaccination campaign in January using the AstraZeneca/Oxford and Chinese-developed CoronaVac jabs.
Last week Brazil announced it had purchased 10 million doses of Sputnik V.
Today it said it had also purchased 100 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech jab and 38 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot vaccine. — AFP
