What do Hungary, Poland and not only do on Russian and Chinese vaccines
Orbán says his favorite vaccine is the Chinese one, while Poland opposes Russian Sputnik
To date, Hungary is the first EU country to give the green light to Chinese and Russian vaccines. The first, the one produced by Sinopharm, was approved by the country's authorities in a climate of protests due to the fact that the green light had turned on not thanks to the opinion of the Hungarian Medicines Agency (Ogyéi), but through a government decree authorizing the use of a vaccine that has already been tested elsewhere.
Budapest has thus ordered 5 million doses of the product sufficient, according to Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó, to vaccinate 2.5 million people. In mid-February, Hungary received an initial supply of 575,000 doses. In January, the Hungarian Medical Association (Mok) had expressed its reservations about the government's decision, the opposition parties had accused Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of exposing the population to easy risks. The fact is that the administration of the Russian and Chinese vaccines has begun and at the moment about 1.37% of the population is vaccinated.
HOW MUCH ADVANCED SPUTNIK AND SINOPHARM
Already in the last months of last year, the Hungarian prime minister had guaranteed his compatriots the commitment of the executive to bring home the Chinese or Russian product despite the EU having not given its approval to the spread of these vaccines as their experimentation had not been completed.
Today Orbán says he is satisfied to have managed to find a shortcut with which to circumvent the "slowness of the EU in supplies"; he affirms that the anti-Covid vaccine he preferred is the Chinese one since, in his opinion, it is the Chinese who have greater competence in this specific area. Beyond this, Orbán told the German portal Focus online that "there are no vaccines from the East or the West, but only good or bad vaccines, and that people's lives are above any political consideration. ".
In recent days, the country has also received 100,000 doses of the Russian product, in welcoming which Szijjártó stressed the need to vaccinate as many people as possible in a short time to effectively combat the pandemic. Indeed, in recent weeks, in Hungary, the number of infected people has started to increase again, continuing to put pressure on an already suffering health system. Recent opinion polls show that most Hungarians look pessimically at the unfolding of events and only 38% of respondents admit they want to get vaccinated but preferably not with Russian or Chinese products.
WHAT POLAND, SLOVAKIA, UKRAINE AND CZECH REPUBLIC ARE DOING
In the Visegrád space (V4) and its surroundings we find Poland and the Baltic Republics that oppose Sputnik V for political reasons – Ukraine has even banned it -, while for the Lithuanian authorities, Russian vaccination diplomacy is a weapon with the which Moscow intends to attack the image of the EU and avoid new sanctions for the Navalny case . Warsaw, however, is said to be in talks with China for a Sinopharm supply.
Returning to V4, 200 thousand doses of Sputnik have just arrived in Slovakia (of the 2 million planned), after an initial hesitation due to the opposition of one of the majority parties. On the other hand, Prague seems to be interested again, which, according to what has been learned, could use Sputnik V without waiting for the approval of the European Medicines Agency (Ema, whose judgment, however, the Russian vaccine does not seem to have submitted). According to Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, the possible approval of the Sùkl, the national regulatory authority, would be enough. The latter will have to examine the documentation and, in case of approval, it will be the duty of the Minister of Health to issue an exemption.
Just a month ago Babiš had assured that the Czech Republic would await EMA's approval on the Russian drug. Today it seems that Prague does not exclude an opening also towards the Sinopharm vaccine on the Hungarian example that sees Orbán increasingly in the role of the forerunner, intent on indicating alternative ways to those traced by the EU.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/ungheria-polonia-sputnik-sinopharm/ on Sun, 07 Mar 2021 07:23:31 +0000.