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“6 thousand. Doses of the Russian vaccine have crossed the Hungarian border with Slovakia,” Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjart said in a video posted on Facebook.
According to the minister, the shipment was taken to Budapest, where Hungarian experts will decide how to use the vaccine. Mr. Szijjarto did not provide further details.
On Saturday, Hungary started vaccination against the coronavirus earlier than most European Union countries, receiving the first batch of vaccine developed by pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and BioNTech in Belgium.
Budapest, which has long been at odds with Brussels over restrictions on democratic freedoms and a deviation from the rule of law, started vaccination the day before. Most EU countries launched a coordinated COVID-19 vaccination campaign on Sunday.
Last month, Szijjarto said that Hungary was the first European country to receive a Russian vaccine against the Sputnik V coronavirus for testing, and that Hungarian doctors and experts went to Russia to evaluate the production of the drug.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA), whose scientists are evaluating the vaccines before they are officially authorized for distribution in the Community, has not yet presented its evaluation of a Russian preparation for COVID-19, the first artificial ground satellite launched by the sovietic Union.
Moscow states that an interim analysis of clinical trial data on this vaccine has shown that its efficacy is 95 percent.
However, Western and Russian experts have raised concerns about the extreme urgency of developing the vaccine, and critics have described it as a means of increasing Russia’s geopolitical influence.
According to Budapest, if the safety and efficacy of the drug is proven, the country could receive large batches of Sputnik V in the coming years, and one of the Hungarian companies could engage in mass production of the drug.
“Hungary is open to all successful vaccines,” Szijjart said on Monday.
“We are doing everything possible to ensure that Hungary receives all effective vaccines as soon as possible, no matter where they are developed, in the West or the East,” he said.
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