Hungary became the first European Union country to approve a Covid-19 vaccine from China after Premier Viktor Orban said the country would buy Sinopharm vaccines to speed up inoculations amid the slow rollout of western shots.The decision followed a government decree that allows the automatic approval of vaccines already used on at least 1 million people abroad, Chief Medical Officer Cecilia Muller said at a briefing on Friday.
Hungary is ready to place a major order with Sinopharm in days, Orban told state radio earlier in the day.Hungary is also the only EU country to have approved Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine and the cabinet has already ordered doses to inoculate 1 million people, or a little more than a tenth of the population.