Chief medical officer: 550,000 doses of Chinese Sinopharm vaccine to arrive on Tuesday – UPDATE

A shipment of 550,000 doses of Chinese Sinopharm vaccine is scheduled to arrive in Hungary on Tuesday which is enough to inoculate 275,000 people against Covid-19, the chief medical officer said on Monday.

Cecília Müller told an online press conference that Hungary expects to take delivery this week of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine enough to inoculate 50,000 people and of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to inoculate 51,480 people.

“Effectiveness and safety are very important to us all, two considerations we follow for the introduction of every vaccine,” she said.

Commenting on the Chinese vaccine, she said it was based on a well-tested and well-known technology which includes the virus in inactive form so it cannot cause infection but stimulates full immune response.

Speaking at the same press conference, István György, a state secretary of the Prime Minister’s Office, said that Hungary this week will continue inoculating people in the oldest age group and those under the age of 60 with chronic illnesses.

Vaccination will be carried out this week with the Pfizer, Sputnik V, AstraZeneca and Moderna vaccines, with people in the oldest age group getting the Pfizer jab, he said.

Some 60,000 people in the old-age group will receive their shots at hospitals and another 23,000 suffering from chronic illness at GPs, György said. Another 70,000 residents and staff in social care homes will receive their second Pfizer shot in the next seven days, he added.

György noted that with continued inoculations conducted over the next seven days and mass inoculations over the weekend, a total of one million people can be vaccinated.

“In a prospective third phase of mass vaccination, by exploiting full capacity, it is feasible that we can inoculate up to two million people during a period of seven days,” the state secretary said.

As we wrote today, Orbán noted that over a span of three months, Hungary will receive enough doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine to inoculate 1 million people. Meanwhile, Hungary has also purchased enough doses of China’s Sinopharm jab for 2.5 million vaccinations, he added. The prime minister said that even with “the uncertainties around the rollout of vaccines in Europe”, it was certain that by the end of May, Hungary can have 3.5 million more people vaccinated than a European Union country of similar size that relies solely on Western vaccines. Details HERE.