Russia flies planeload of Sputnik V vaccine to Argentina and Bolivia

A shipment of doses of the Sputnik V (Gam-COVID-Vac) vaccine against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is transported after arriving at the Ezeiza International Airport, in Buenos Aires, Argentina January 28, 2021. REUTERS/Agustin Marcarian

BUENOS AIRES — Russia has dispatched 240,000 doses of its Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine on Thursday, for use mostly in Argentina and the rest bound for Bolivia, airline and Argentine health officials said.

Bolivia, which an airline official said will take delivery of 20,000 doses from the consignment, will be the second Latin American country after Argentina to rollout the Russian vaccine.

Argentina has already taken delivery of two consignments, each with 300,000 shots.

Aerolineas Argentinas said in a tweet just after midday local time that a total of 240,000 doses had arrived in Buenos Aires. “Unloading has begun, the doses will be stored in the Airbus warehouse, packed in Thermobox (refrigerated boxes).”

An AA spokesman told Reuters earlier that the latest consignment of 220,000 doses for Argentina was equally split between first and second shots of the two-stage vaccine.

The Argentine deliveries fall short of the 5 million doses the health authorities had said they expected to receive in January from Russia.

From Buenos Aires, Bolivia’s BOA national airline was scheduled to pick up its share of the shipment to fly to La Paz.

The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which markets Sputnik V, and the Gamaleya Research Institute, which developed it, said on Wednesday supplies to Latin America might be delayed by up to three weeks as production capacity was ramped up.

RDIF declined to comment on the latest shipment.

Argentina had not received advanced notice of the size of the latest shipment of 220,000 doses before it was sent, health ministry official Carla Vizzotti told state news agency Telam.

“We are super careful until we have confirmation, due to the particular dynamic of the world supply of vaccines,” she said, adding she hoped more would arrive “during the next few days and weeks.”

Argentina has administered 272,323 people with the first dose of the Sputnik V vaccine and 45,710 people with the second dose, ministry figures show. Argentina has also approved the vaccine manufactured by AstraZeneca.

Bolivia’s President Luis Arce wrote on Twitter that the 20,000 doses his country was receiving were more than the 6,000 originally agreed for delivery in January. He said the vaccines would be administered to frontline health workers.