Syrian Ambassador to Russia Riyad Haddad denied his own statement about Sputnik V vaccination for President of Syria Bashar al-Assad.
“Some media outlets reported my erroneous statements during the [St. Petersburg International Economic] Forum,” the diplomat explained a couple of hours after his statement about Assad's vaccination.
Haddad said that in fact, Assad did not need to be vaccinated, because he had already had COVID-19 and recovered from it.
Earlier, the Syrian ambassador noted that the population of the Syrian Arab Republic was being actively vaccinated with the Russian vaccine. Doctors and senior officials have already received a dose of Sputnik V.
The Syrian president got infected with COVID-19 in March 2021. Assad and his wife Asma returned to work as usual a few weeks after the infection. They were quarantined before recovery.
Meanwhile, Hungary has become another European country that considers the production of the Russian Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine on its territory, Hungarian Minister for Foreign Affairs Peter Siyarto said, Reuters reports.
The diplomat said that the Hungarian authorities were conducting negotiations with Moscow.
“Both sides are ready for Hungary to produce vaccines on the basis of the Russian license,” he stressed.
Hungary is the only EU country that vaccinates the population with the Russian Sputnik V, despite the lack of official approval from the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
On June 1, it became known that the Slovak authorities started registering those wishing to be vaccinated against coronavirus with the Russian Sputnik V vaccine. Slovakia plans to launch vaccination with the Russian drug from June 7. The drug will be available in Bratislava and seven other cities in Slovakia.
For the time being, about 60 countries have registered the Russian vaccine. In addition to Russia, Sputnik V production is underway or is being prepared in