OREANDA-NEWS Over the past eight months — from January to August 2023 — the regions have increased purchases of coronavirus vaccines, RBC calculated based on data from the analytical company Headway Company.

So, in the first eight months of 2023, the regions of Russia purchased 109 thousand packages of coronavirus vaccines, which is one and a half times more than for the whole of last year — 69.6 thousand packages. The volume of purchases in monetary terms increased from 5.5 times from 56.6 million to 313.3 million rubles.

The increase in purchases of vaccines from COVID-19 is due to the fact that the Ministry of Health has stopped supplying vaccines centrally since the spring of this year. In 2023, vaccines were purchased by regions that did not do this at all last year. The Volgograd Region (24.1 thousand packages), St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod region (20.1 and 20 thousand packages) became the leader in terms of purchases. In monetary terms, the Nizhny Novgorod Region had to pay the most — 111.1 million rubles. In addition to the increase in purchases, their structure has also changed. So, if in 2022 almost the entire volume was accounted for by Sputnik Light (48.1 thousand packages), used for revaccination, now the regions, according to analysts, are acquiring Convacel, a vaccine that was developed in St. Petersburg. The volume of its purchases amounted to 84.3 thousand packages, Sputnik Lite — 23.3 thousand. The regions did not buy Sputnik V at all on their own in 2023.

Earlier it became known that in some regions of Russia they began to return the mask regime to combat COVID-19, SARS and influenza.

So, in the Tula region, the mask regime was recommended to be observed by visitors and staff of all medical institutions, in terms of polyclinics and hospitals in Tyumen, they are also advised to wear personal protective equipment. In addition, the Pskov region announced the return of the mandatory mask regime to the hospitals of the region. In the Saratov region, masks are already required to be worn by hospital medical staff, in the Perm Region they were recommended to be used by the chief physicians of polyclinics and hospitals.