150,000 doses of Russian Sputnik V vaccine on way to Hyderabad

The Sputnik V vaccine will only be distributed after taking mandatory regulatory approval from Central Drugs Laboratory, Kasauli.

Published on: May 1, 2021, 12:25:43 IST

By Shishir Gupta, New Delhi

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A consignment of Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine is on its way to Hyderabad from Moscow with the first batch of 150,000 doses set to arrive later on Saturday with another three million doses scheduled to land this month.

The Sputnik V vaccine delivery started after Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a long conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin on April 28. (Reuters Photo)

According to diplomats based in Moscow and New Delhi, the flight carrying 150,000 doses of the preventive vaccine left Russian shores this morning and will be handed over to Dr Reddy’s Laboratories. Before the doses are handed over for vaccination, the Indian partner of the Russian vaccine will seek mandatory approval from the Central Drugs Laboratory, Kasauli.

Also read | Gap between Sputnik-V doses can be increased, say makers

Sputnik V is based on human adenoviral vectors, is one of three vaccines (other two are Pfizer and Moderna) that have an efficacy of over 90 per cent against the coronavirus disease, which is caused by SARS-CoV-2. It was given regulatory approval or restricted use authorisation in India on April 12. The two-dose vaccine, which has to be administered 21 days apart, has been developed by the Gamaleya National Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology and is supported by the Russian sovereign wealth fund, Russian Direct Investment Fund or RDIF.

According to officials, some five million “filled and finished” bottles of Sputnik V will arrive in a container from Russia in June and some 10 million-plus vaccines in July. New Delhi has asked Moscow for the ramped-up supply of the vaccine as it wants to vaccinate as many Indians as possible in the shortest time.

The Sputnik V vaccine delivery started after Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a long conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin on April 28. The diplomats based in Moscow say that the conversation was “very warm” between the two leaders with Russia standing with India in this hour of national crisis.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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