European vaccine chaos: Zeman (Czechia) contacts Putin asking for Sputnik V.
Czech President Milos Zeman says he sent a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, asking for the vaccine to be sent Sputnik V. Zeman said Prague will not insist on obtaining approval from the EU drug agency, EMA , before using the medicine. By now in the EU everyone goes about their business ignoring the European authorities who, until now, have proved more of an obstacle than a help to national vaccination campaigns.
Speaking on CNN Prima News on Saturday, Zeman revealed that the letter to the Russian leader was written in agreement with the country's premier Andrej Babis. The Czech leader said he expects Putin to approve the request and then send the vaccine. He has probably already had some informal confirmations in this regard.
" If my information is correct, this request will be granted, " he told the channel.
Zeman noted that the vaccine will need to be certified by the local regulator, the State Drug Control Institute (SUKL), before the Russian vaccine can be launched. He added that his seal of approval will be "sufficient" to launch the vaccination campaign, so EMA approval automatically becomes superfluous.
Zeman's statement appears to be contrary to that of his senior health official, Jan Blatny, minister of health since October, representative of the Babis populist party (ANO). Earlier this month, Blatny ruled out the possibility of the Czech Republic importing Sputnik V on its watch unless it was first approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). Evidently, however, the need has overcome the reluctance
On Friday the Czech government extended the state of emergency, which will last until March 28, due to a resurgence of infections due to the new variants. The restrictions on freedom are quite tight and include non-essential overseas travel, all controlled by police and military.
"We must do this to avoid a total collapse of our hospitals," Babis said on Friday, warning that if the blockade is not applied correctly, "the whole world will observe a new Bergamo in the Czech Republic."
The country, with a population of 10.7 million, has reported around 1.2 million confirmed cases of Covid-19, including 20,000 deaths from the virus. According to data from Johns Hopkins University, its death rate per 100,000 people is currently the worst in the world.
About 644,300 Czechs have already been vaccinated with Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca shots, that is 6% of the population, but for Zeman it is not enough. After this last decision the question arises: what is the EMA for, the agency based in Amsterdam (stolen from Milan thanks to Gozi …), very close to Dutch and German producers, but very far from the practical needs of citizens?
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The article European chaos vaccines: Zeman (Czechia) contacts Putin asking for Sputnik V. comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/caos-europeao-vaccini-zeman-cechia-contatta-putin-chiedendo-lo-sputnik-v/ on Sun, 28 Feb 2021 10:03:42 +0000.