Surgeon general says number of COVID-19 infections stagnating

The number of new coronavirus infections in Hungary is stagnating but the number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals is still “very high”, the surgeon general said, as the country began to gradually reopen its economy on Wednesday.

Surgeon General Cecília Müller also told a briefing that Hungarian authorities would follow guidance from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) regarding AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine, but there has not been an official statement yet.

EMA is currently investigating whether there is any

link between AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine and rare blood clots,

and it plans to make an announcement at 1400 GMT.

Meanwihle, István Újhelyi, an opposition Socialist MEP, on Wednesday slammed the government for not planning to cooperate in shaping the common European Union health-care policy, and accused the government of “turning quality of health care into a sovereignty issue”.

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Újhelyi, who sits on the European Parliament’s public health committee, told a press conference on Wednesday, marking World Health Day, that he had written a letter to Ildikó Horváth, the state secretary for health care,

asking how the government planned to join the EU’s European health-care union.

He was “stunned to learn”, he added, that the government had not wanted an input into health-care competencies laid down in the EU’s founding document or to participate in programmes shaping common health-care policy. Újhelyi said the government was “yet again” framing living up to higher, European standards as a sovereignty issue.

“The government doesn’t want the weaknesses of Hungarian health care to show in European comparison

on indicators such as nosocomial infections,” he said.

It is in the interest of Hungarian citizens and health-care employees that Hungary participates in the programme of the European health-care union, Újhelyi said.

Source: Reuters