The coronavirus vaccine will become mandatory in the national vaccination calendar. The decision is being worked out with the deputies, said the head of the Ministry of Health, Mikhail Murashko, at a session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

Ilya Yasny, head of the scientific expertise of the pharmaceutical venture fund Inbio Ventures, explained in a conversation with The Insider that in this way the state guarantees the opportunity to get vaccinated for free for certain categories of citizens. The rest depends on the wording with which the vaccine will be included in the national calendar, he notes:

“The presence in the national vaccination calendar is not the same as mandatory. We know that everyone can vaccinate their children if they want to, or they can not vaccinate if they don't want to. You can't force people to get vaccinated. Here we are talking about the expediency of introducing into the national calendar. As far as I understand, being included in the national calendar only means that such a vaccination is guaranteed to be accessible and free for the population.

Influenza vaccination is included in the national calendar, it is recommended to get vaccinated against influenza every year at the beginning of the autumn season. And for the pneumococcal vaccine, the recommendation is only for vulnerable populations. We will see how this will be included in the national calendar in the event of coronavirus.”

In May, Russia suspended the production of the EpiVacCorona vaccine at the Vector Center. Earlier it became known about the termination of the production of the CoviVac vaccine at the Chumakov Center.

“We are faced with the fact that applications are not received from the regions for other vaccine preparations, except for Sputnik V (...) whether he sees his future or not, ”said Alexander Gorelov, deputy director for scientific work of the Central Research Institute of Epidemiology of Rospotrebnadzor.

The EpiVacCorona vaccine has long been at the center of a scandal, and its developers have been accused of falsifying data. Among the Russian coronavirus vaccines, EpiVacCorona showed the worst results of application. As St. Petersburg scientists found out in January, the efficiency of Sputnik V was 58%, Sputnik Light - 50%, KoviVac - 38%, and EpiVacKorona - minus 40%.

The World Health Organization has not recognized any of the Russian vaccines. At the same time, independent experts point out that the effectiveness and safety of the Sputnik V vaccine has been proven by many studies; people in more than 70 countries use the Sputnik V vaccine.