Hungary’s medicines authority: Strict regulations must be met for new vaccines from India and China

Hungary’s medicines authority OGYEI said in a statement that all batches of the new vaccines delivered to Hungary would have to be approved by the National Public Health Centre (NNK) before being administered to the public.

The regulator said it has granted a temporary authorisation for the use of the CoviShield jab, which, similarly to AstraZeneca’s vaccine, is a viral vector shot. The vaccine is being developed in India using technology granted to the Serum Institute of India by AstraZeneca.

Canadian drug regulator Health Canada granted authorisation for the emergency use of the vaccine in February after concluding that it was similar enough to the AstraZeneca jab.

U.N. agency WHO said on Friday that

over 20 million doses of the vaccine had been given to people in Europe, with over 27 million doses of Covishield, the vaccine by AstraZeneca partner Serum Institute, administered in India.

CanSino, OGYEI noted, is also a viral vector vaccine developed by CanSino Biologics and the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology. The regulator said it has authorised the purchase of samples of the single-dose vaccine, having reviewed the documentation of its production process in December.

The samples are being studied by the NNK.

Pakistan to start private imports of CanSino COVID-19 vaccine for sale

A private company in Pakistan will begin receiving shipments of China’s CanSino Biologics COVID-19 vaccine this week for commercial sale, an official at the company’s local partner told Reuters on Monday.

Pakistan, one of the first countries in the world to allow private imports of COVID-19 vaccines, has already received a batch of the Russian Sputnik vaccine.

“We expect the first 10,000 doses to come on March 25, and 100,000 next month and 200,000 the month after,” said Hassan Abbas, an official of AJ Pharma, CanSino’s local partner, which will be importing the vaccine.

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Source: MTI/Reuters