Make your injection and go home! Foreigners are invited to be vaccinated with "Sputnik V" in Moscow

Sergey Kron

Let's make a reservation right away: Russian vaccines, including Sputnik V, have not yet been approved by the World Health Organization (WHO), the European Medical Agency (EMA) and the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Alas, most countries do not accept Russian vaccination certificates. They are not always recognized even by those countries that actively use this vaccine - Serbia, for example.

Our situation is no better. Russia does not recognize any vaccines and certificates other than domestic ones. In Suzdal or Pskov, a foreigner will not be accommodated in a hotel with a foreign certificate, even if it is Sputnik V. And upon arrival at Sheremetyevo, you will have to take a PCR test and upload its results to "Gosuslugi" if the tourist was vaccinated outside of Russia.

Sly Russian tourists are vaccinated with Sputnik to travel around Russia, and then (even to the detriment of their health) are vaccinated with one of the drugs approved by WHO, EMA and CDC in order to travel safely across the EU and the United States.

By the way, three vaccines are currently registered in Russia - "Sputnik V" from the Institute. Gamalei, "EpiVacCorona" from the Center for Virology "Vector" and "KoviVak", developed by the Center. Chumakov.

“All vaccines in the West, except for Johnson and Johnson, are two-component,” said virologist Ekaterina Parshina to NI. - This means that after the first vaccination it is necessary to return for the second. The term is different for each vaccine: for Pfizer / BionTech - three weeks, for Moderna - from four months, for AstraZeneca - from three months. If you want to receive a certificate of complete vaccination, then the second component is best done in the same country where the first one. There are exceptions when the first component was made in one country, the second in another, and still received a certificate of vaccination. But it's better not to risk it: in addition to the fact that they may not be issued a certificate, there may not be a vaccine you need.

According to the expert, there is no accurate record of Russians wishing to get vaccinated abroad or foreigners who prefer to inject themselves with Sputnik V. In any case, this is their choice. But the number of those and others is growing every month.

- I know many cases, when people went to Europe and got vaccinated there for some unknown reason, they were still forced to take PCR on their return. It should be borne in mind that any foreigner wishing to be vaccinated in Russia will have to pay for the vaccine. Labor migrants are vaccinated at the expense of the employer. It is known that, traveling to the West, after Sputnik V, tourists are vaccinated with Pfizer to receive a certificate that allows them to travel the world. How the organism will behave in this case is not known. But these are vaccines that are different in structure and irreparable harm can be caused to health, ”the virologist warned.

Nevertheless, Russian travel companies that have begun to actively engage in "vaccine tourism" recommend our tourists Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson and Johnson. They are all widely available, and a certificate with a quar code is issued immediately after the first injection by Johnson and Johnson and before the second injection by Pfizer or Moderna.

It is interesting that the websites of the leading Russian tour operators do not have "vaccine tours", but there are two-four-day tours to Serbia or Croatia, costing from $ 500. Apparently, this is the very "vaccine", or, as tour operators insist, "sightseeing tours", within which a tourist, if he wants, can be vaccinated.

Using a special procedure, some small travel agencies are trying to offer tourist trips to Russia with the opportunity to get vaccinated. But large travel companies in Russia are at a low start. Dmitry Gorin from the Association of Tour Operators of Russia notes that "not all conditions have been created yet, but the readiness is complete." According to him, the opening of borders and issuing visas are important factors, but due to epidemiological restrictions, this is not yet possible. And yet Gorin stressed: "Travel agencies and medical centers are ready to vaccinate foreigners."

Although it is known that the first 50 tourists from Germany came to Moscow for vaccination with the Russian drug "Sputnik V" back in April.

Antique tours organizer Hans Blank told Euro n ews about the general demand among Germans for vaccinations in Russia. So, the speaker explained that the inhabitants of Germany want not only to get vaccinated, but also to have a cultural rest in Moscow.

One of the tour participants, Uwe Keim, said that it takes about five to ten months to wait for his turn for the COVID-19 vaccination in his homeland, so he rushed to Moscow. The trip cost him only 1,000 euros - this cost includes a three-day hotel stay, vaccinations and excursions around Moscow.

But Lufthansa decided to seize the moment and offer to organize vaccination tours to Moscow for everyone who wants to be vaccinated with Sputnik.

It will look like this: a passenger gets on a plane in Frankfurt am Main, Vienna or Zurich, and a few hours later lands at Moscow's Domodedovo airport. Here, in a special transit zone, he is given the desired injection and immediately sent back. Guests will not pass through passport control, nor will they come into contact with other airport passengers. He injected himself - and back to Germany.