Xinhua: European Countries Turning to East for Vaccines amid Supply Shortage

- Two weeks after Hungary announced that it had reached a deal with China's Sinopharm, the first batch of Sinopharm vaccine arrived in Budapest on Feb. 16, which will enable a mass immunization of 2.5 million people.

- Bulgaria is receiving only 40 percent of what it had expected of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. "We do not need your courtesy. We need vaccines," said Health Minister Kostadin Angelov.

- An EU summit on Thursday stressed the need to urgently accelerate the authorization, production and distribution of vaccines, as well as inoculation.

As a looming third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic highlights the vaccine supply shortfalls in Europe, Hungary joined Serbia to launch mass inoculation with China's Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine earlier this week.

To ease both citizens' impatience with the slow rollout of vaccinations and the world's urgent need of a global response to the pandemic, some European countries are turning to the East while the European Union (EU) strives to scale up production and reaffirms solidarity with third-party countries.

CHINESE VACCINE

"Today is an important day because (on) this day we are starting to vaccinate with Chinese vaccines," Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Wednesday in a video message on his Facebook page.

Staff members transfer the first batch of China's Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine purchased by Hungary at the Liszt Ferenc International Airport in Budapest, Hungary, Feb. 16, 2021. (Photo by Attila Volgyi/Xinhua)

Hungary currently has stocks of COVID-19 vaccines from five producers. Two weeks after the country announced that it had reached a deal with China's Sinopharm, the first batch of Sinopharm vaccine arrived in Budapest...