Putin's Remarks On Global Pandemic, Foreigners' Vaccination In Russia

Efforts to combat the coronavirus pandemic must be global, Vladimir Putin stressed, speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Friday.

Only ensuring wide and universal access to coronavirus vaccines on all continents will eliminate the threat of new pandemic outbreaks on our planet.

According to the IMF, countries with a high level of income and 16 percent of the world’s population have access to 50 percent of the vaccines produced. as the result, only 10 percent of the world’s population have been fully vaccinated or received the first jab, whereas hundreds of millions of people have no access to vaccines simply because their countries do not have the required technology, production facilities or money to buy the vaccines. and the assistance being provided to these countries by those who can afford to do it has been negligibly small so far.

Regrettably, it is every man for himself in the fight against the coronavirus on the global scale. The necessary volume of assistance is not being provided where it is badly needed now, or, which is absolutely absurd, politically motivated bans are imposed on the purchase of tested and effective vaccines that have been proved to be completely reliable. in the current situation this looks like unwillingness to protect one’s own citizens from this threat.

Russia is contributing to the efforts against the coronavirus. For example, Sputnik V has been registered in 66 countries with a combined population of over 3.2 billion.

Putin noted that not only unique technologies were created and the production of vaccines was promptly launched in Russia, but also that foreign partners are being assisted in localizing their production.

The President asked the Government, regions and business to work together to vaccinate people who come to Russia as labor migrants. Many of them work in the Russian construction industry, in trade and services, as well as in housing and communal services.

The domestic pharmaceutical industry is ready to further increase the production of vaccines. Russia is fully self-sufficient and can provide foreigners with the opportunity to come for vaccination.

Now it has become a common practice for people from different countries, including entrepreneurs, heads of large European and other companies, to make special trips to Russia to get vaccinated against coronavirus.

In this context, Putin instructed the Cabinet of Ministers to analyze all aspects of this issue by the end of this month in order to organize paid vaccination of foreigners in Russia, taking into account the requirements of safety and sanitary control.