Gergely Gulyás, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, has slammed the European Medicines Agency for slow licensing, and said that Hungary’s authorities had already granted a license to the AstraZeneca vaccine.
“If the European authority followed suit, vaccination [in Hungary] could start.” Gulyás also noted that a Russian vaccine had also been granted a preliminary license to be applied in Hungary, adding that Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó was discussing the subject in Moscow.
Vaccine supplies to the EU are “clearly insufficient,” Gulyás said, noting that mass vaccination was already under way in Israel, the US, the UK and in several Arab countries. Hungary cannot ease its coronavirus-related restrictions as long as there is no significant drop in the number of new cases, Gulyás said, adding however that the spread of the virus was slowing down and the number of fatalities was also decreasing, contrary to a large part of the region where a third wave of the pandemic had hit.
Gulyás said that people to be inoculated would be asked which vaccine they preferred, but added that if the preferred product was not available the client would have to wait until it was purchased. He said reports of unused vaccines being dumped were “fake news”. “This could not happen and it would have serious consequences if it did,” he said, adding that doctors must not disregard the official vaccination schedule.
Photo credit: Mandiner