Hungary has licensed Russia’s coronavirus vaccine, breaking ranks with other EU countries and ignoring calls to stick to a common European vaccine policy.
Its foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, was on his way to Moscow on Thursday to discuss the purchase, after Hungary’s medical body gave the Sputnik V vaccine emergency approval.
Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s rightwing prime minister, has been strongly critical of the slow speed of the EU vaccine distribution programme. His chief of staff, Gergely Gulyás, said on Thursday: “If vaccine shipments arrive at this rate from Brussels, we can only get vaccines from other, alternative sources.”
So far abut 140,000 people in Hungary have been vaccinated, with the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines. Officials are also in Beijing for talks over the approval of China’s Sinopharm vaccine.
Surveys show Hungarians are among the biggest vaccine sceptics in Europe, with fewer than half prepared to be vaccinated, and critics say licensing Russian and Chinese vaccines may increase this sentiment.
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