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It has become a mantra for many European governments “they still need a vaccine, they still need a vaccine”, which has raised the issue of health to a political level, while governments, regardless of the EU, are contracting in vain with more and more manufacturers, as the much-criticized Orbán government has done – at the end of the day, they can’t give you more vaccines. The rush, the political drama, only increases the distrust of products, and the supply of vaccines can only be improved by increasing production capacity, which is not the case in China and Russia, among others, in a Commission on the Environment, European Parliament Public Health and Food Safety press release on Monday, which also discussed why the competitive pace of the Hungarian government could be detrimental.
In the last years of modern society, the hits were mainly on themes like someone like Pepsi or Coca-Cola, Nike, Adidas or Puma, or perhaps the Beatles or the Rolling Stones were the band that made the most epoch. However, a year after the coronavirus epidemic, the issue is that someone would be vaccinated with Pfizer / BioNtech, Moderna, AstraZeneca, maybe Sputnik V or one of the Chinese vaccines, if it is finally time to come and even choose. In fact, this question is much more important to most people than the type of soft drink you pay a few hundred florins for, because it is also about your health and regaining your personal freedom. However, by now, this question has become more politicized as to what vaccine, how and when, who and from whom you would like to receive, and which stamp of approval from the EU or Hungarian pharmaceutical authority should be on it. .
Although the debate is still relevant, it actually has no land, as highlighted in Monday’s substantive debate in the European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI): vaccination, the whole world is fighting for vaccines, but it doesn’t matter which country you signed a contract with (even separately, as the Hungarian government did in the case of the Chinese Sinopharm and Russia’s Sputnik V), because at the end of the day the only question is how much enough available. Furthermore, within the European Union, the aim was precisely to ensure that no country could outperform the other, thus eliminating the competitive disadvantages of the poorer Member States. As is well known, on June 17 the European Commission presented an EU vaccine strategy, and Member States also supported joint agreements with various pharmaceutical companies to distribute vaccines authorized by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in a proportionate way between Member States. It was this independent authority that was criticized for criticizing the slower pace of licensing than a similar organization in the United States or the United Kingdom.
But nothing is enough
At the beginning of Monday’s presentation, Pascal Canfin, head of the ENVI commission, presented the other side of the problem: “2.3 billion doses of vaccine are provided with sufficient resources to vaccinate all citizens of the EU, which is now a transportation issue. ” According to the French MEP, it is precisely the production capacity that is lacking now, it is not contracts or financial issues that depend on the effectiveness of vaccination campaigns. He also indicated the need for even greater transparency in European Commission contracts, which is why Parliament maintains its call for as many contracts with pharmaceutical companies as possible to be made public.
Peter Liese, a German member of the European People’s Party, took a similar view, saying he was “understandably frustrated” that vaccination programs were progressing slowly and that many were looking for those responsible. “The virus, on the other hand, doesn’t care who the scapegoat is, it continues to spread,” he added in the conversation, also emphasizing that it is wrong and harmful to view vaccination campaigns as competition. “This is also the reason why it is unfair to compare the vaccination campaigns of the EU Member States and Great Britain: the United States and Israel are ahead of the Union in vaccinating the population, but China and Russia, by example, they are far behind [az EU-hoz képest]Regarding the British, several ENVI members highlighted that the claim that the Westminster government had already vaccinated one million people was wrong, since most of those affected had only received one dose, while the real protection against the coronavirus was only available after the second vaccination. it develops.
Overcoming production problems could, according to commission members, mean improving production capacity, Peter Liese said the key to the solution could be Joe Biden, the president of the United States, ready to work with other countries around the world. This is because production needs to be resolved not only in the EU, but also outside it, and it would be a good opportunity to do so if the production patents were shared between the two mRNA vaccine companies (Moderna and Pfizer / BioNtech) .
Sputnik vaccine is just a show so far
A very important element of the round table was that all the participants called competing Member States a problem and advocated a common EU agenda. “Imagine we have 27 different contracts, 27 different prices, 27 order processes, that would create real chaos,” said Canfin, who said that this joint strategy would avoid competition between member states. More precisely, I would only avoid it, because Hungary was the first to start entering into contracts with Russia and China for vaccines that were not approved by the EMA, but by the Hungarian authority, the National Institute of Pharmacy and Food Health (OGYÉI).
Bas Eickhout, the Dutch Greens MEP, noted that Viktor Orbán and the Hungarian government had gone a separate path, but this was not expected to solve the long-term vaccine shortage. First of all, the problem is that although The Lancet only published a promising study on the effectiveness of the Sputnik V vaccine in a reputable medical journal, the EMA was not yet able to consult the product dossier, the processes of manufacture, as the manufacturer did not apply for a marketing authorization.
Eickhout also said, in response to a question, that “all the geopolitical issues with Russia” and not what caused Foreign Minister High Representative Josep Borrell’s visit to Moscow last week did not help the issue of Russian vaccines, in addition to leaving humiliate by Sergey Lavrov, Minister of Foreign Affairs, so the plenary session will have difficult questions for the top diplomat. At the beginning of the meeting, Borrel spoke about the fact that the Sputnik V vaccine was promising and “could be of great help to all humanity”, and then left speechless, as Lavrov criticized the EU for educating Moscow, He didn’t even want a real dialogue, he made the whole Navalny poisoning case bogus and called the entire union an unreliable partner.
Thus, Borrell had no choice but to condemn Russia’s actions hours later, expelling three EU diplomats during the meeting, and requesting treatment, which the Kremlin said had indicated they did not want to have a regular dialogue. Returning to the vaccine issue, the Dutch Green Party politician stressed that there is no extensive supply option there either. “We also see a stagnation in the production of the Sputnik vaccine, as in the case of the other preparations, and it is even difficult to speak of any production,” he added. According to him, this will not be able to satisfy the demand of the EU. Upon returning to Hungary, he said that Viktor Orbán “got on this program with the Hungarian consignment and carried Putin’s agenda.” He is sure that it is too early to judge the role of the Sputnik vaccine in the EU vaccination programs.
We don’t trust vaccines because it has become a political issue
When asked by Napi.hu about the high level of public distrust of vaccines across the EU, for example, only 40 percent in Hungary would make sure to inject one of the coronavirus vaccines, according to a recent CSO survey. – Jytte Guteland MEPs said this was closely linked to the measures taken by Member States to make recruitment a political issue, as exemplified by the Hungarian special envoy. “We need to protect the EMA process, which precisely aims to give people safe vaccines,” added the Swedish politician, who said that it would only increase mistrust, that authorization could be slow, but if it had an uncertain effect, no it was safe. Vaccines are included in the programs, they only reduce the disposition of the population.
“It just activates ammunition for anti-vaccination movements, a boomerang effect to promote products that may be less effective or safer,” Guteland said. He feels that political voices and games based on statements like “our country was the first to hire this vaccine,” he says, are precisely what reinforces the concerns of the rejection camp. Such actions of politicians spoil the perception of the work of experts through haste. In the same way, the poison of misinformation, he said, can be extracted: it seems that the fate of each preparation has been decided based on real scientific studies.
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