"I've asked Health Minister Vladimir Lengvarský (an OLaNO nominee) to make the contract for the purchase of the Sputnik V vaccine available," President Zuzana Čaputová said on Monday, following her visit to the State Institute for Drug Control (SUKL) and the Biomedicine Centre of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAV), adding that she'll also be interested in the reasons for the contract being kept secret. Health Minister Vladimir Lengvarský (an OLaNO nominee) brought the contract to the Presidential Palace for his meeting with the President on Tuesday. "The President plans to familiarise herself with its content in order to form an opinion concerning the use of Sputnik V vaccine in Slovakia," said the President's spokesman Martin Strižinec following the meeting.
Former Prime Minister Igor Matovič decided to buy 2 million doses of the Russian made Sputnik V vaccine, with the first 200,000 doses landing in Slovakia in March. The vaccine, which is not registered in the European Union, was stored at a pharmaceutical company in Eastern Slovakia while the Slovak State Institute for Drugs Control was tasked with issuing an expert stance that would serve as the basis for the Health Ministry to allow the vaccine to be used in Slovakia, based on special permission for those who explicitly want to get this jab. Last week SUKL stated that it can't issue an expert stance on this unregistered vaccine due to missing documents from the manufacturer and inconsistency of batches.
Hungary's drug regulator will help Slovakia examine batches of Russian Sputnik V vaccines that Slovakia has bought, Hungary's Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó announced on Friday afternoon after meeting with Slovak Finance Minister Igor Matovič in Budapest.
