By Walter Bianchi
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Argentina has approved use of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccination for people over the age of 60, the government of the South American country announced in a statement on Wednesday.
The National Administration of Medicines, Food and Medical Technology, or ANMAT, Argentina’s regulatory body, said in the statement that the vaccine “is within an acceptable margin of safety and efficacy for the age group over 60 years.”
President Alberto Fernandez, 61, plans to get vaccinated with Sputnik V, now that it has been approved for his age group, government officials said. Some 45,832 people have died in Argentina of COVID-19 so far.
The second batch of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine arrived in Argentina on Saturday, allowing the country to apply the second part of the two-dose program currently aimed at inoculating frontline health workers.
Some 300,000 doses of the vaccine arrived from Moscow on a special flight of flag carrier Aerolineas Argentinas. They will be used to complete the Sputnik treatment program that began in late December. More doses are expected to arrive in Argentina later this month and in February.
Paraguay last week became the eighth country outside Russia to approve the Sputnik V vaccine, developed by Moscow’s Gamaleya Institute. Other countries to approve emergency use of the vaccine include Bolivia, Venezuela, Algeria and Serbia.
(Reporting by Walter Bianchi in Buenos Aires, Writing by Hugh Bronstein; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
