Slovakia will start administering Sputnik V coronavirus vaccines

PRAGUE- The Slovak government gave the go-ahead to use Russia's Sputnik V vaccine on Wednesday after a months-long debate over its use that had led to the resignation of the prime minister.

The decision puts Slovakia on course to become the second EU member after Hungary to use the Russian vaccine, which has so far not been approved by the EU drug regulator. The health ministry was instructed to make the vaccine available by June 7, a resolution released on the government website said.

Slovakia, a country of 5.5 million people, imported 200,000 doses of Sputnik V in March, but they had since been sitting in storage pending approval.

"There are still a non-negligible number of citizens who declare that they would only be vaccinated by the Sputnik V vaccine," a report accompanying the government resolution said.

Prime Minister Igor Matovic was forced to resign after securing the initial vaccine shipment behind the backs of his coalition partners, leading to a government reshuffle which also included the replacement of the health minister.

The country's drug regulator SUKL declined in April to make a recommendation on whether to use the drug, saying it did not have sufficient data. Slovakia then asked Hungary to provide additional testing of Slovakia's stockpile. The new health minister said earlier this month that the doses held in Slovakia had passed those tests. 

Slovak officials have repeatedly said people would be allowed to choose between Sputnik V and other vaccines.

So far, the country has been using EU-approved vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson. It has given first doses to 1.6 million people, according to government data.

The go-ahead for the Russian vaccine would apply only to the 200,000 doses already in the country, the government resolution said. An agreement with Russia calls for a total of 2 million doses. No plans have been announced about importing the rest.

(Reporting by Jan Lopatka Editing by Catherine Evans and Peter Graff) ((jan.lopatka@thomsonreuters.com; +420 234 721 614; Reuters Messaging: jan.lopatka.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))