Ambassador: Russian Delegation to Check if Torlak Has Capacity to Produce Vaccines

COVID-19 vaccine(AP Photo/David Goldman, File)

A Russian delegation is to arrive to Serbia by the end of this or beginning of the next week to see if Belgrade’s Torlak Institute has the capacity to produce the Russian vaccine against COVID-19, Sputnjik V, the Serbian Ambassador to Russia, Miroslav Lazanski, announced on Jan. 28.

In a statement he gave for the Pink TV, Lazanski said that “the Russians say that, based on what they know of the Torlak’s capacities and technological capabilities, it is quite possible for [the institute] to being producing the vaccine.”

He added that Russia has already started a mass-vaccination. The only problem the Russians are facing is the quantity of doses as they had to supply the former USSR countries as well.

There are two vaccines currently available in Russia, Sputnik V and EpiVicCorona, Lazanski said, adding that a third one also exists, but that it is in the final stage of testing and not yet used on the citizens.

Virologist and microbiologist Milanko Sekler of the Kraljevo Veterinary Institute said on Jan. 28 that people who have been vaccinated can still spread the virus, but that that is true for any vaccine.

“The vaccinated can spread the virus, but this is not specific to this vaccine only – this applies to all of them. We are all vaccinated against tuberculosis, yet the infirmaries are full,” Sekler told the Prva TV.