Coronavirus: Hungary is first EU country to approve China’s Sinopharm vaccine
- Any vaccine that has been administered to at least one million people worldwide may now be approved for use in Hungary
- Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said Hungary had agreed to purchase 5 million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine
Hungary’s medicine and food safety regulator on Friday approved China’s Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use, making it the first country in the European Union to do so.
The decision followed a government decree on Thursday that streamlined Hungary’s vaccine approval procedure. Any vaccine that has been administered to at least one million people worldwide may now be approved for use in Hungary – without being assessed by the country’s medicines regulator.
“Today, the National Institute of Pharmacy and Nutrition approved the Sinopharm vaccine, which means that in addition to Pfizer, Moderna, Sputnik and AstraZeneca, we can now count on Sinopharm as well,” Chief Medical Officer Cecila Muller told a virtual press conference.
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The decree also allows any vaccine approved by three countries, with at least one being an EU member-state or candidate for EU membership, to sidestep Hungary’s medicines regulator and be approved for use.
Sinopharm has been approved in several countries including Serbia, an EU candidate state, and passed the threshold of 1 million inoculations in November.
Last week, Hungarian authorities became the first in the EU to approve the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, and jumped ahead of the European Medicines Agency in approving the AstraZeneca jab.