"The crucial question for me is whether there will be something in the second and third quarter, because then it would contribute to this vaccination campaign. The prerequisite is therefore registration and sufficient quantities [for deliveries]. And we can conclude a contract, as it was in other cases if there is registration [of the vaccine]", Spahn said during a press conference.
The minister added that the timing of the registration does not depend on European institutions but on a received data about the vaccine.
The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), the principal promoter of the vaccine abroad, began discussing an agreement on the purchase of Russian coronavirus vaccine with representatives of the German government, the vaccine's Twitter account said on Thursday.
A number of German regions previously announced their readiness to discuss the supply and production of Sputnik V. The federal states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Brandenburg announced their readiness to begin such negotiations with Moscow.The authorities of Rhineland-Palatinate believe that this should be done by the federal government, but noted that they would be happy to have this vaccine certified by the European drug regulator EMA. Earlier, the health ministry of Bavaria signed a memorandum of intent with the RDIF on possible deliveries of 2.5 million doses of Sputnik V to the region.
Sputnik V was registered by the Russian Health Ministry in August 2020, becoming the world's first vaccine against the coronavirus. The drug's effectiveness after the third phase of the clinical trials was proved to be nearly 92 percent, according to trial results released The Lancet medical journal.
