RUSSIA SHIPS ONLY FIRST PART OF COVID VACCINE TO ARGENTINA

Russia’s first big international shipment of its coronavirus vaccine -- 300,000 doses sent to Argentina last week -- consisted only of the first dose of the two-shot vaccine, which is easier to make than the second dose, sources told Reuters.

Unlike most other COVID-19 vaccines, which are given as two shots of the same product, the Russian Sputnik V vaccine relies on two doses delivered using different inactive viruses, known as vectors.

The Gamaleya Institute that developed the vaccine says it is more than 91% effective after the two-dose course, Polina Nikolskaya and Polina Ivanova reported.

But some Russian manufacturers are finding the second dose, which is administered 21 days after the first, to be less stable, two sources said, revealing a new challenge for the country’s ambitious national inoculation program.

The decision to send doses of the vaccine to Argentina caused an outcry at home, where the life-saving drug is still mostly unavailable to the general public outside the capital Moscow.

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