Life-saving cargo: Plane with Russia's Sputnik V vaccine arrives in Argentina (VIDEO)

After spending more than 20 hours in the air, a plane with the first batch of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine against the coronavirus landed in Argentina's capital, Buenos Aires, on Thursday.

Argentina's health minister, Gines Gonzalez Garcia, and other top officials were at the Ezeiza International Airport to meet the long-awaited cargo arriving from Moscow. 

“It's a very special day filled with a lot of emotions,” Gonzalez Garcia wrote on Twitter, adding that vaccinations will begin “as soon as possible.” Argentinian medics will be the first to get the shots, followed by senior citizens and members of law enforcement agencies. 

An Aerolineas Argentinas Airbus 330 delivered 300,000 doses of the Russian vaccine to Argentina. They were packed in 56 refrigerated containers, weighing more than nine tons.

A video from RT's Ruptly video agency captured the cargo being loaded onto the aircraft at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport.

On Wednesday, Argentina became the first country in Latin American to approve the Sputnik V vaccine. It was done in accordance with emergency procedures and without local trials. The country is struggling with Covid-19, with over 1.5 million confirmed cases and more than 42,000 fatalities so far due to the virus.

Earlier this month, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which sponsors the production of the Russian vaccine, and the government in Buenos Aires signed a deal to supply 10 million doses of Sputnik V.

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