Doctors in Hungary began administering a COVID-19 vaccine developed in China, making the country the first European Union nation to use a Chinese jab.
China’s Sinopharm vaccine, which underwent human clinical trial in the UAE, also won widespread praise from Hungarian netizens after Prime Minister Viktor Orban received the jab on February 28, 2021.
Orban received the shot two days after Hungarian President Janos Ader, who also opted for the Chinese vaccine.
In a Facebook post, Orban posted a photo of himself getting the shot, a close-up of the Chinese vaccine, and a picture of a door to the vaccination point where he received the inoculation. He captioned it “Vaccinated!”.
Netizens swarmed social media, thanking the government for adopting China’s vaccines, and making Hungary a leading country in Europe in terms of vaccine administration.
According to state secretary Dr. Istvan Gyorgy, as many as 368,000 could be inoculated this week compared with 471,000 that have received the jab since Hungary’s national vaccination program began in December.
The country has agreed to purchase 5 million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine over the next four months, enough to vaccinate 2.5 million people.
