Russian Armed Forces Begin Mass COVID-19 Vaccination to Cover 400,000 Servicemen

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russia has begun mass coronavirus vaccination among its armed forces personnel, planning to inoculate more than 400,000 servicemen, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Friday at a ministral meeting.

He added that the plan is to vaccinate over 400,000 servicemen in total.

According to the minister, the number of already vaccinated Russian servicemen is over 2,500 at the moment and is expected to reach 80,000 by the year-end.

The Russian military is also researching how the plasma of vaccinated servicemen with high titers of antibrussi* armed* forc*odies can be used to cure COVID-19, Shoigu said.

"This method has already displayed efficiency in grave forms of the disease. At the moment, more than 500 vaccinated servicemen participate in the study," the minister said.

As Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said on Tuesday, the mass vaccination against COVID-19 in Russia is scheduled for 2021 and it would be voluntary. She also pointed that over 117,000 doses of Sputnik V vaccine have already been released into the market, and over 2 million doses are going to be produced by the end of 2020.