Venezuela to purchase and manufacture Russia's EpiVacCorona vaccine

Venezuela has reached a deal to purchase doses of Russia's EpiVacCorona vaccine, as well as manufacture the inoculation locally, Vice President Delcy Rodriguez said late on Friday.

The South American country has to date received three million doses of vaccines against the novel coronavirus, namely the Sputnik V and Sinopharm shots from political allies Russia and China.

Venezuela launched a mass inoculation campaign earlier this week, though the government has not provided details on how many people have received shots in the crisis-stricken OPEC nation, which is lagging behind other South American countries in vaccinating its population.

Rodriguez did not detail how many doses of EpiVacCorona Russia would send, nor when local manufacturing would begin. Venezuela's information ministry did not respond to a request for comment with questions about the deal. Russia's embassy in Caracas confirmed the deal in a tweet.

Earlier this year Russia sent Venezuela a thousand doses of EpiVacCorona to be used in trials.

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