Amid the raging second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic inIndia, the country will start receiving consignments of Russian Sputnik Vvaccine doses from May 1 onwards.
India is expected to receive 5 million doses of thevaccine by June.
According to media reports, around 150,000 to 200,000doses of the vaccine will be delivered by early May and another 3 million dosesby May end.
After Covishield and Covaxin, Sputnik V, developed byGamaleya National Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology inMoscow is the third Covid-19 vaccine to get emergency use approval in India.
According to the guidelines, the vaccine is indicated foractive immunization to prevent Covid-19 in individuals over 18 years of age andit needs to be stored at a temperature of minus 18-degree Celsius in liquidform.
However, it can be stored at 2-8-degree Celsius in itsfreeze-dried form in a conventional refrigerator, making it easier to transportand store.
In a recent study, published in the journal The Lancet,the efficacy of Sputnik V was determined to be 91.6 per cent.
"There is a need to generate evidence about itsefficacy in the Indian population. Sputnik V will provide one more option tothe country to boost its vaccination drive," Harshal R Salve, associateprofessor at the Centre for Community Medicine, AIIMS Delhi, had earlier toldIANS.
The vaccine should be administered in two doses of 0.5 mleach with an interval of 21 days.
While speaking to IANS recently, N.K. Arora from theIndian Council of Medical Research said that the composition of the first dosewill be different from the second dose and there should be at least a three tofour weeks gap between the first and the second shot.