Russia open for dialogue with all who need its anti-coronavirus vaccine, says diplomat

MOSCOW, January 17. /TASS/. Russia was the world’s first to develop an anti-coronavirus vaccine and is ready for cooperation will all countries needing it, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Sunday. "Russia was the first in the world to develop the vaccine. What did it say immediately after that? That it is open for cooperation on the legal basis. Our country has begun to cooperate with partners - both countries and international organization - to ensure that the world has a chance for vaccination," she said in an interview with the Voskresny Vecher (Sunday Evening) with Vladimir Solovyov program on the Rossiya-1 television channel. The Russian diplomat made a parallel between the situation around the vaccine and space exploration in the mid-20th century when after the first spaceflight the former Soviet Union came out with an initiative of the peaceful use of the outer space. "Should they [the United States] manage to be the first, any peaceful use would have been out of the question. And the same can be said about the situation with the vaccine. We have demonstrated that we can be the first to do it and we are ready to extend a helping hand to all who see it as a possibility to stop the pandemic. We are doing it openly, on the basis of law. We never show off, we are not seeking to ruin our competitors. This is what is called a great power," Zakharova stressed. On August 11, Russia registered the world’s first vaccine against the novel coronavirus. The vaccine, dubbed Sputnik V, was developed by the Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology of the Russian Health Ministry. It is a vector vaccine based on the human adenovirus. Read more