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Vaccine procurement and centralized vaccine authorization have been too slow, with too few shipments reaching the EU on top of all this – criticism from EU politicians who criticize the European Commission’s central procurement and distribution of vaccines. German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz allegedly said essentially about the entire process:
The EU vaccination program is a “magpie squad”.
Hungary has also criticized the EU for its slowness, leading it to use vaccines with partners outside the European Union as a national competence. However, among the available vaccines, the amount of Sputnik V is negligible in Hungary, in addition to Pfizer / BioNTech, AstraZeneca and Moderna, the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine is the most available. The latter accounts for 32.4 percent of all available vaccines, with the proportion of Suptny V only 3 percent.
Still, according to a Politico article that analyzes the use of vaccines in the EU
In terms of the proportion of vaccines available and administered, Hungary is the last of the member states of the European Union to use only 56 percent of the available vaccine.
In response, Zoltán Kovács, Secretary of State for Communications and International Relations, described Politico’s article as “a sham and a lie”, saying that the Hungarian vaccination program is one of the most successful in Europe, Hungary ranks second in the EU in terms of vaccination of the population and 11% of Hungarians, compared to 6% on average.
According to the Secretary of State, the Hungarian result obviously attracts the attention of many, because it shows that Hungary made the right decision by “acknowledging the faulty purchase of vaccines in Brussels” and also acquired vaccines under national competition.
European phenomenon: refrigerated vaccines
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen blamed AstraZeneca, saying the British-Swedish company is the chicken because of the slow vaccination campaign, as it failed to deliver on its delivery promises in the first quarter of the year.
However, the European Commission or AstraZeneca are not necessarily responsible for the slowness of the vaccination campaign. According to the latest vaccination data from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), the Member States themselves are to blame, Politico explains.
AstraZeneca has a very low performance. By the end of March, the company originally planned to deliver 80 to 100 million doses, then reduced that number to 40 million due to manufacturing difficulties. This target was also not met, with AstraZeneca supplying the EU with just 9 million doses at the end of February.
However, some EU countries do not even use the British-Swedish vaccine that they have already received. Although a certain quantity of vaccines is intentionally retained to provide a sufficient dose for the second vaccination, in many cases the vaccines remain in the refrigerator.
In Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Italy and Slovenia, only one in four AstraZeneca vaccines has been used.
And in Germany, distrust of the British-Swedish vaccine remains significant, following questions about its efficacy and safety in scientific circles. In contrast, the vaccine from Pfizer in the US and BioNTech in Germany, which is currently the most widespread in the EU, is used at a much higher rate, Politico notes.
In most Member States, there is a big difference between the use of the Pfizer and AstraZenca vaccines.
The most striking example is Belgium, where 100 percent of the available Pfizer vaccines were administered, while 20 percent of the AstraZeneca vaccine was administered.
The difference between the use of the two vaccines is equally large in Sweden (Pfizer 83.9%, AstraZeneca 33.9%) in addition to the other four countries already mentioned, with Germany (83.5%, 32.1%) and Hungary (85%, 34.2%).
However, the gap in vaccine use is not typical for all Member States: Ireland (79.9%, 77.2%) and Cyprus (83.6%, 80%) use Pfizer and AstraZeneca, Denmark, 88 , 4%), Bulgaria (67.6%, 57.5%) and Latvia (89.4%, 74.9%).
The most widely used vaccine in the EU is clearly Pfizer, which accounts for 73.6 per cent of the doses administered. AstraZeneca vaccines account for 18.3 percent of the vaccine, while the third approved vaccine in the EU, Moderna, accounts for 6.7 percent.
Thanks to Hungary, 1.2 percent of vaccines received in the EU are provided by the Sinopharm vaccine, but the amount of Russian Sputnik V is negligible at the moment.
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