“Therefore, we are closely following the situation regarding t | .

“Therefore, we are closely following the situation regarding the vaccine’s possible authorization through the said procedure, which would provide an equal and high level of safety for all European citizens,” she added.

“We will follow the EMA,” said Dony Potasse, spokesperson for the Dutch drugs agency MEB.

A spokesperson for Russia’s sovereign wealth fund responsible for promoting the shot abroad, the Russian Direct Investment Fund, suggested otherwise, claiming that bilateral talks with unnamed countries in the EU — in both the east and west — are going forward.

To date, Hungary had only received small batches to use in clinical trials. But Reuters reported the first delivery of 40,000 doses was due to arrive Tuesday, citing a public television interview with Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto.

While some have balked at the Hungarians’ solitary approach, others think the EU has wasted time for political reasons — and lost time fighting the virus and preventing more deaths.

One is Bavaria’s premier Markus Söder, who said over the weekend that EU regulators should urgently review the Russian and Chinese vaccines, clearing them for use if they are safe and effective. German Health Minister Jens Spahn made a similar remark, suggesting they should be used all across Europe if they’re safe. Chancellor Angela Merkel, meanwhile, discussed manufacturing Sputnik at a German facility on a recent call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The looming question, then, is timing of EU approval. The RDIF spokesperson said Tuesday that talks with the European Medicines Agency — responsible for signing off on any vaccine used in the EU — are ongoing. The Sputnik team is sending a ream of data to the regulator, with the start of the review expected to be announced later this month.

Who will buy?
Sputnik could prove to be a valuable lifeline for many countries. According to the Sputnik team, the shot is sold at less than $10 a dose, far cheaper than the mRNA vaccines made by BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna — but still more than the price of a similar adenovirus vaccine from Oxford/AstraZeneca, which costs between $4 and $5 a dose.

Importantly, because the Sputnik vaccine uses adenoviral vector technology, it’s stable at 2-8 degrees Celsius and therefore easier to deal with than the mRNA vaccines, which need extremely cold storage. This could prove to be a boon for less wealthy countries like Bulgaria, which didn’t want to purchase vaccines that required ultra-cold storage, according to media reports.

Indeed, one RDIF official told journalists Tuesday that the shot was designed with accessibility in mind, as the necessary infrastructure for mRNA vaccines wasn’t guaranteed to be in place in far-flung Siberia.