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ndia will receive the first batch of Russian Sputnik V vaccine against COVID-19 on May 1, head of the Russian economic fund, he told Reuters. However, he did not specify how many vaccines would be in the first batch or where they would be administered. "Preliminary estimates will be made on May 1," Kirill Dmitriev said, adding that he hoped Russian supplies would help India recover from the epidemic in time.

India is fighting with the second wave of coronavirus in its health care system. On Monday, India reported more than 352,000 new cases of COVID-19, a global record of daily increase in cases on the fifth straight day. Many countries such as Britain, Germany, France and the United States have promised to send emergency medical care. Russia's RDIF fund, which advertises Sputnik V worldwide, has already signed agreements with five of India's leading manufacturers of more than 850 million doses of vaccine per year.

RDIF said it expects the production of vaccines in India to reach 50 million doses per month in the summer and move forward. The Indian government has abolished the customary tax on the importation of COVID vaccines and oxygen in the medical field and related equipment as the country struggles with a serious health crisis.

Other vaccine manufacturers such as Moderna and Johnson and Johnson have been urged to seek permission to use an emergency in India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week joined the country's vaccine manufacturers on a video conference and urged them to continue to increase their production capacity to infect all Indians in the short term. The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) in January approved the emergency use of two COVID-19 vaccines - the Covaxin of Bharat Biotech and the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covidshield by the Serum Institute of India in Pune. Earlier this month, DCGI re-approved the Russian vaccine Sputnik V.