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Hungary looks east for coronavirus vaccines
BUDAPEST, Nov 28, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – An Aeroflot delivery of Russia’s
Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine to EU member Hungary last week has sparked new
criticism at home and abroad of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s go-it-alone
policies.
“We are the first European country to receive such a sample,” said Foreign
Minister Peter Szijjarto in a video showing the plane touching down at
Budapest airport.
An initial 10 doses were handed over for local testing, with large-scale
deliveries and potentially mass production by a Hungarian firm possible next
year if it proves safe and effective, according to Budapest.
Hungarian doctors and experts will soon study the production of Sputnik V
in Russia, Szijjarto told a press conference with Russian health minister
Mikhail Murashko in Budapest on Friday.
Their visit would allow a speedier decision on approval of the vaccine in
Hungary, said Szijjarto.
While Hungary has reserved potential future vaccines from both Europe and
the United States, it is also in contact with Chinese and Israeli developers,
according to Budapest.
“No one can say for certain when we’ll get a vaccine or when it’ll be
mass-produced, (hence) Hungary should also look to the east and cooperate
with Russia and China,” a foreign ministry official Tamas Menczer said this
week.
Menczer accused critics of the procurement plans of representing the
interests of pharmaceutical multinationals and “the Brussels lobby scene”.
– ‘Government propaganda’ –
The European Medicines Agency (EMA), charged with overseeing vaccine
approval in the European Union, has yet to assess the Russian drug, which
Moscow said this week showed 95 percent effectiveness in latest trials.
Earlier this month, EU officials warned — without mentioning Hungary —
that marketing vaccines unauthorised by Brussels would go against Europe’s
vaccine strategy.
“If you were to market such a vaccine on European territory, then
obviously, we would have to take action in order to ensure that these rules
are respected,” said a European Commission spokesperson Vivian Loonela,
without providing further detail.
Hungary and Poland are already at loggerheads with Brussels over the EU’s
long-term budget. And Hungary’s maverick approach could spark a new rift.
MORE/SSS/1045 hrs
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But Orban’s domestic critics are also wary about the arrival of Sputnik V.
“Maybe it will be safe and effective, but this is less about the virus or
the vaccine, and more about government propaganda telling us that, when in
trouble, the Russians are friends who help us first,” said Gabriella Lantos,
a health expert with the New World opposition party.
Meanwhile, Hungarian pro-government media are in favour of Sputnik V and
criticise Brussels for being cautious.
While Orban insists that his foreign policy of opening up towards the east
is pragmatic, it is a strategy that has seen him accused of being Russian
President Vladimir Putin’s “Trojan horse” in the EU and NATO.
Orban brushes off such claims and insists his country’s geographic
position on the EU’s eastern fringe forces cooperation with larger powers.
Tamas Denes, a spokesman for doctors’ trade union Reszasz, cautiously
welcomed the arrival of Sputnik V, but admitted that “it is hard not to see
politics in it”.
However, “refusing Sputnik just because it was developed in Russia is not
a good idea either, it is good to have options,” Denes told AFP.
“I hope for safe vaccines regardless of the country of origin,” he said.
– Vaccine scepticism –
Nevertheless, convincing the Hungarian public to be inoculated may prove
difficult.
An Ipsos survey last month showed willingness in Hungary to take a Covid-
19 vaccine if available was among the lowest in Europe, ahead only of Poland
and Russia.
A “dangerous” potential side-effect of embracing Sputnik V could be that
it might “fuel existing scepticism about vaccines, leading to public health
risks,” according to analyst Peter Kreko of the Political Capital think-tank.
With the EU having signed advanced purchasing contracts with western
developers for hundreds of millions of doses of possible future vaccines,
Kreko says it is still more likely that Hungary will opt for western
inoculations. “But if there is a delay in a vaccine from the EU, the
government could approve Sputnik and paint itself as saviours of the
population, while raising tensions with Brussels,” he told AFP.
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