Venezuela Receives Russian EpiVacCorona Vaccine for Trials

Russia announced that more than 115,000 EpiVacCorona doses had been deployed in its national immunization program, calling it “100% effective” in producing antibodies.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has said his country will receive 10 million doses of the Sputnik V jab, Russia’s flagship vaccine, and to date has received several hundred thousand doses.

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According to Russia’s deputy prime minister, Yuri Borisov, during a visit to Venezuela, “We provided 1,000 doses of the EpiVacCorona vaccine candidates, which is a vaccine that has shown positive results. We could consider supplying that vaccine in addition to Sputnik V.”

Venezuelan Science Minister Gabriela Jimenez tweeted earlier Tuesday that EpiVacCorona doses had arrived as part of clinical trials that are to take place in Venezuela.

So far, Venezuela has received nearly 500,000 doses of the coronavirus vaccine manufactured by China’s Sinopharm and about half as many - 250,000 - of the Russian Sputnik V.

"Venezuela will soon receive the second vaccine developed by Russian scientists, EpiVacCorona. This vaccine has 100% efficacy."

Venezuela's government is currently in talks to buy vaccines from the COVAX program using funds frozen in the United States due to U.S. government sanctions against Venezuelan state assets. 

COVAX, the World Health Organization’s program designed to secure COVID-19 vaccines for resource-poor countries, has set aside upwards of 2.4 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, pending a payment agreement between Venezuela and the WHO.

That said, President Maduro has said Venezuela would not accept AstraZeneca doses following concerns about side effects, even though the WHO announced soon afterward that the benefits of AstraZeneca’s vaccine outweighed the risks.