POLITICS

Russia inoculates more than 800,000 people against COVID-19

Published Saturday, January 2, 2021 11:55AM EST

In this handout photo taken on Thursday, Aug. 6, 2020, and provided by Russian Direct Investment Fund, an employee works with a coronavirus vaccine at the Nikolai Gamaleya National Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology in Moscow, Russia. Russia on Tuesday, Aug. 11 became the first country to approve a coronavirus vaccine for use in tens of thousands of its citizens despite international skepticism about injections that have not completed clinical trials and were studied in only dozens of people for less than two months. (Alexander Zemlianichenko Jr/ Russian Direct Investment Fund via AP)

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MOSCOW -- More than 800,000 people in Russia have been inoculated so far against coronavirus and more than 1.5 million vaccine doses have been dispatched, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said on Saturday.

Russia, which began rolling out its Sputnik V vaccine in early December, has the world's fourth higher number of COVID-19 cases and is putting high hopes on several vaccines it plans to produce.

The Sputnik V vaccine, which Russia already started supplying to other countries, is administered in two doses, which use different components, 21 days apart.

Russia sent 300,000 doses of the vaccine to Argentina last week, causing frustration at home, with some people arguing that more shots should be made available at home.

On Saturday, Russia reported 26,301 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, taking its total caseload to 3,212,637.

Authorities said 447 people had died in the past 24 hours, taking the official death toll to 58,002.

(Reporting by Gleb Stolyarov and Polina Nikolskaya Writing by Andrey Ostroukh Editing by William Maclean and Frances Kerry)