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BUDAPEST, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Hungary will start vaccinating
people suffering no chronic diseases with Russia's Sputnik
COVID-19 vaccine soon, the surgeon general said on Tuesday,
becoming the first European Union country to use it.
Cecilia Muller said the first 2,800 doses of Sputnik would
be given to those who have registered for inoculations, and that
as Hungary was striving for "maximum safety" those who have a
chronic disease will not get the shot.
"It... can be used with appropriate caution in case of
certain chronic diseases," she told a briefing.
Hungary's drug regulator granted the shot emergency use
approval rather than waiting for the EU's European Medicines
Agency (EMA) to give it the go-ahead.
Hungary has also granted approval to Chinese company
Sinopharm's vaccine.
The country of around 10 million people is scheduled to
receive 600,000 doses of Sputnik and another half a million
doses of Sinopharm's vaccine this month, potentially allowing it
to speed up its inoculation programme despite delays in Western
vaccine deliveries.
EU countries have so far relied almost entirely on the
Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine but Hungary's drug regulator approved
Sputnik V for use last month.
Muller said that some 291,396 Hungarians - healthcare
workers and the most vulnerable among the elderly - had so far
received at least one shot of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
Hungary will also start using AstraZeneca vaccine
this week to inoculate people aged between 18 and 60 who are
suffering from chronic diseases.
(Reporting by Krisztina Than
Editing by Gareth Jones)
