As Russia’s coronavirus vaccine nears completion, Moscow residents will be offered immunisation for FREE

Muscovites will be able to get vaccinated against Covid-19 free of charge, according to the capital city’s mayor, Sergey Sobyanin. His announcement comes the same week Russia’s first vaccine trialists were successfully immunized.

“As soon as [the vaccine] appears, we will start the inoculation campaign,” Sobyanin said, “The vaccination will be free at all out-patient medical establishments.”

The mayor added that more Muscovites should receive flu shots in autumn 2020 so the Covid-19 epidemic does not overlap with an influenza outbreak. Last week, Sobyanin said that Moscow was slowly edging towards herd immunity, with 60 percent of the people already having antibodies. 

Several Russian institutions are developing a vaccine against the novel coronavirus, with one already looking to be a great success. On Monday morning, 20 vaccinated volunteers were discharged from a Russian military hospital after almost a month of observation, as they were given a coronavirus vaccine developed by Moscow’s Gamaleya Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology.

According to a press release from the Ministry of Defense, which worked together with the Gamaleya Institute to produce the immunization, the trialists have “unambiguously” shown immunity to Covid-19. 

On July 16, Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), revealed that Russia’s domestic Covid-19 vaccine would next be tested at home and “in a number of other countries,” and announced that he expects it “to receive regulatory approval… in August-September.” 

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