Hungary to get Sputnik tech by year-end
Image by Dmitriy Kandinskiy / Shutterstock.com
Hungary will get the technology necessary for making Russia's Sputnik V COVID jab at the national vaccine plant it is building by the end of the year under a political agreement reached in Moscow, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said on Thursday, after talks with Russian Minister of Health Mikhail Murashko, according to a report by state news wire MTI.
In a statement issued by his ministry, Szijjártó said a high-level cooperation with Moscow in the area of healthcare had benefited Hungary, allowing it to buy 2 million Sputnik jabs in the spring, contributing to the fastest vaccine rollout in Europe.
"Now we've agreed to raise this cooperation with vaccines to a new, higher level," he added.
Hungary has an economic interest in manufacturing a vaccine that is in high demand worldwide, he said.
Murashko told Szijjártó that a World Health Organisation (WHO) procedure to list the Sputnik vaccine for emergency use will speed up with the government set to sign an agreement on the procedure with the WHO on Wednesday.
Szijjártó said Hungary had positive experience with the Sputnik V vaccine and is ready to make its own data available to the WHO for the procedure.
A meeting of the Hungarian-Russian joint economic committee - which Murashko co-chairs - will take place late in November to hash out the details of production of the vaccine in Hungary.
In a post on his Facebook page, Szijjártó said licenced production of the Sputnik COVID vaccine in Hungary "could start in the fall of next year".
Hungary laid the cornerstone of its HUF 55 billion national vaccine plant in Debrecen (195 km east of Budapest) in September.
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