European countries turning to East for vaccines amid supply shortage

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.

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 on Feb. 16, which will enable a mass immunization of 2.5 million people.

"We are the first country in the European Union that uses Sinopharm vaccine. We try to save lives and preserve the economy, and we are fighting together with our Chinese friends against COVID-19," Tamas Menczer, state secretary from the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, told Xinhua when receiving the shipment.

In Serbia, where a second shipment of Chinese vaccine arrived on Feb. 10, the Sinopharm vaccine is welcomed with full trust, and the early inoculation is seen as an opportunity, according to Ivona Ladjevac, head of the center for the Belt and Road Initiative at the Institute of International Politics and Economics in Serbia.