Should Budapest start overtaking its neighbors in vaccination | .

Should Budapest start overtaking its neighbors in vaccination while the rest of the EU struggles, the Sputnik jab could prove irresistible to countries in the neighborhood that have somewhat warmer relations with Moscow, driving a further wedge in the European Commission’s vaccine strategy.

One former Czech health minister has already argued that it’s wrong to ignore Sputnik, and that the country should consider obtaining some of the vaccine for its own population.

However, this all depends on the amount of vaccine that Russia can manufacture. RDIF didn’t reveal how much production is currently online, but said it’s aiming to produce 1 billion doses by the end of the year — enough for 500 million people. It has production agreements with a number of countries outside of Russia, including India, Korea and Brazil. Manufacturing in China will start in February.

But Simona Guagliardo, health policy analyst at the European Policy Centre, cautioned that it’s important to understand the weight that the EMA’s sign-off has.

“The procedures put in place by the EMA aim to create trust in vaccines,” she explained. “This isn’t a small detail if we think about how Europe is the global epicenter for vaccine hesitancy.”

Global ambitions
Up until now, Sputnik V — along with China’s Sinovac and Sinopharm — has been seen as the only route to vaccination for low- and middle-income countries. Unable to afford vaccine deals with big pharmas on one hand, and under-served by the global COVAX facility on the other, these nations have been turning to Russia and China — potentially at the expense of quality.

The fact that these vaccines were being bought up before their efficacy was proven is merely an indicator of countries’ desperation, said Kate Elder, senior vaccines policy adviser at Doctors Without Borders.

Tuesday’s Lancet report, therefore, may come as some relief to both these countries and clinicians like Elder, who want to see equal access to quality vaccines for all.

Theresa Fallon, director for the Centre for Russia Europe Asia Studies, is clear in her assessment: The Russian vaccine has joined a “prestigious club of three global vaccines which are confirmed to be more than 90 percent effective.”

“Competition is good, even in vaccinations, and the sooner vaccination programs are rolled out, the sooner the world can recover from this pandemic,” Fallon said.

Politico.eu

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