Hungary will focus on EU, Chinese coronavirus vaccine purchases and will buy anti-coronavirus vaccines through the EU procurement mechanism or directly from China. Russia cannot make enough of its rival vaccine to inoculate Hungary’s 10 million population, a senior official said on Thursday, as was reported by Reuters.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s chief of staff Gergely Gulyas told broadcaster ATV that Hungary would continue scientific cooperation with Russia over its COVID-19 vaccine but it would not be at the heart of its vaccination program at this stage.
“Russia has inadequate manufacturing capacity,” Gulyas told ATV in an interview whose transcript was published on the website.“We are happy to partake in the testing, but vaccines en masse may come as part of the EU procurements or from China,” he added.
Even though Hungary has participated in Russia’s testing efforts and was an early recipient of small batches of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine and received 6,000 doses of the Sputnik V earlier this week, it remained unclear how the shot would be administered and under what approval process. Gulyas’s remarks were the first clear indication however the accuracy of his comments has not been confirmed yet and the Russian Direct Investment Fund, which backs the vaccine’s development and which is responsible for its marketing abroad, denied that Hungary had decided against any further purchases of the Russian vaccine.
Hungary is raising alarm among its European peers that it would bypass the European Union’s approval mechanism. Hungary has agreed to participate in trials for the Sputnik V vaccine, sent experts to Russia to observe its manufacture and floated the idea of producing it in Hungary. The government has not committed to submitting vaccines it clears for use in Hungary to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for approval, saying it would use its own experts for testing and approval in line with EU emergency rules. The situation remained unclear.
As was earlier reported by ‘Apostrophe’, Turkey has also ruled out Russia's COVID-19 vaccine as it did not meet conditions of “good laboratory practice”.