KARACHI: The government has given approval for Russian developed Sputnik V vaccine under “emergency use authorisation”, and given a go-ahead to a local pharmaceutical company for the import and distribution of the Russian-developed vaccine.

As per details, Russia’s Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine has become the third to be approved for emergency use in the country. The double dose of Sputnik V in Pakistan would cost double the rates at which it is available in India.

Reportedly, the approval for the vaccine has been given in a meeting of the registration board of the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (Drap).

DRAP officials said a committee of experts comprising top infectious diseases experts and pathologists for the evaluation of clinical trials data for registration of COVID-19 vaccines on January 21, 2020 recommended the granting of Emergency Use Authorization for Sputnik-V vaccine in Pakistan.

Last week, Drap authorised the Oxford University-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use in Pakistan. A couple of days later, the regulatory body approved Chinese state-owned firm Sinopharm’s Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use, the second shot to be given approval for use in the country.

“Sputnik V is the world’s first registered vaccine based on a well-studied human adenoviral vector-based platform,” said the information available on the Sputnik V website. “It currently ranks among top-10 candidate vaccines approaching the end of clinical trials and the start of mass production on the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) list.”