First in the EU: Hungary receives first shipment of Russia vaccine

The first shipment of the Russian coronavirus vaccine has arrived in Hungary, the chief medical officer said on Tuesday afternoon, adding that the 40,000 doses were enough to inoculate 20,000 people.

As we wrote before, the Hungarian government became the first in the EU who buy Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, also Hungary is became the first EU member to approve China’s Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine. Hungary has five Covid-19 vaccines approved by Hungary’s drug authority: Pfizer, Moderna AstraZeneca, Sputnik-V and Sinopharm.

Cecília Müller noted that Hungarian health authorities had so far granted licences to five vaccines, while the government had made reservations for a total 19.7 million doses.

Hungary is expecting enough vaccines from Russia to inoculate 1 million people, and vaccines from China for another 2.5 million, Müller said.

Russian vaccines will be enough to inoculate one million people in the next three months, the foreign minister said today. 

State secretary Tamás Menczer said last weekend, because of how slow the rollout of the vaccine had been on the part of the EU, Hungary had entered into talks with Russia and the country’s drug regulator has approved the Russian Sputnik V vaccine.

“Because of this, the left and Brussels are constantly attacking the Hungarian government,”

he added. Read more HERE.

Müller said that 6.5 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine were expected, adding that Hungary has so far received 500,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines.

Müller stressed that

all vaccines provided sufficient protection against the virus, preventing serious symptoms and complications.

As Reuters said today, Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine gives 92% protection, late stage trial results published in The Lancet reveal.

According to the international medical journal, the Russian vaccine has also been deemed to be safe – and offer complete protection against death and hospitalisation.

Scientists said Sputnik V has been demonstrated 92% efficacy in the trial.

Source: MTI