Orban Pressures Hungarian Regulator to Decide on Chinese Vaccine

(Bloomberg) -- Hungary’s prime minister piled pressure on the national health authority to decide on approving Covid-19 vaccines from China, saying western versions negotiated by the European Union were too slow to arrive.

Viktor Orban is treading a fine line as he seeks to boost vaccinations without raising already alarming rates of vaccine skepticism in Hungary. He was an early supporter of Russia’s vaccine and he initially said people wouldn’t be told which doses they would be getting. He has since said citizens would be informed.

The EU hasn’t approved vaccines from China and Russia, which have disclosed less safety and testing information than their western rivals, though member states have the right to sidestep the bloc’s drugs regulator in emergencies.

Orban told state radio on Friday that he’d asked virus experts whether vaccines from China cause more harm than Covid-19. He said the experts told him there were no safety concerns. He didn’t mention vaccine efficacy during the interview.

“I really hope that the authority will give a clear response in a matter of a few days” on whether it will authorize vaccines from China, Orban said. “We have several million Chinese vaccines we could get tomorrow morning or in a few days.”

The government is close to signing a major order for vaccines from Chinese company Sinopharm, pending regulatory approval, Cabinet Minister Gergely Gulyas said in a televised briefing on Thursday.

Hungarians are still skeptical regarding vaccines, with 27% responding “Yes” to a question on whether they would get the jab if it became available, compared with 29% who said “No,” according to a survey by the state statistics office published on Thursday. That compared with 15% in favor of the vaccine and 36% against a month ago.

‘Hungarian Vaccine’

Confidence in vaccines is “continuously growing,” Orban said. He has sought to overcome skepticism by earlier this month touting the vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE -- the only one available in Hungary until this week -- as a “Hungarian vaccine,” because Hungarian researchers formed a key part of the team that developed it.

The government has said vaccinations are key to easing virus curbs, which currently include an evening curfew. High school students must study from home and some businesses are closed as part of social-distancing restrictions. The economy probably contracted 6.4% in 2020, according to government projections.

Hungary has vaccinated 105,728 of its 9.8 million citizens as of Thursday, according to the government. So far health-care workers and those living or working in nursing homes have been inoculated, and the vaccination of elderly will start soon, Orban said. As of this week, only vaccines from Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc. have been deployed.

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