How Russian vaccine Sputnik V spread through Latin America

Russia is becoming a major provider of Covid-19 vaccines to Latin America, a move that could have long-standing consequences in shaping the post-pandemic world and further dent US prestige in the region.

While Moscow faces protests at home and condemnation over human rights issues from the US, France, UK, Canada and other Western countries, those issues have had little resonance in Latin America, where the recent publication of a positive peer-reviewed assessment of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine in The Lancet, Britain's leading medical journal, was widely celebrated. Eduardo Valdes, a former diplomat and member of government coalition Frente de Todos, who now serves in as chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee in Argentina's Chamber of Deputies, says there's a clear line between vaccine negotiations and external factors.