Cecília Müller, speaking at the daily press conference of the coronavirus operative board, said she hoped that a greater choice of vaccines would bolster the country’s vaccination programme, adding that “the jab is the only way out of the epidemic”.

She said that 1.59 million Hungarians, 16% of the population, had received at least their first shot, but warned that the third wave of the pandemic was “still extremely dynamic”, with the highly infectious British coronavirus variant causing 90% of the new cases.

“We’re running a race against time; the more immunised people we have, the sooner the epidemic will subside,” she said, encouraging citizens to “accept the vaccine offered without further consideration”.

Müller said that the highest number of hospitalised Covid-patients, 625 people, are being treated in the hospitals of Budapest’s Semmelweis University, while another 450 were in the city’s Honvéd hospital.

All Vaccine Batches Must Get Hungarian Authority’s Approval

Hungary’s medicines authority OGYÉI said in a statement that all batches of the new vaccines delivered to Hungary would have to be approved by the National Public Health Centre (NNK) before being administered to the public.

The regulator said it has granted a temporary authorisation for the use of the CoviShield jab, which, similarly to AstraZeneca’s vaccine, is a viral vector shot.

The vaccine is being developed in India using technology granted to the Serum Institute of India by AstraZeneca.

Canadian drug regulator Health Canada granted authorisation for the emergency use of the vaccine in February after concluding that it was similar enough to the AstraZeneca jab.

CanSino, OGYÉI noted, is also a viral vector vaccine developed by CanSino Biologics and the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology.

The regulator said it has authorised the purchase of samples of the single-dose vaccine, having reviewed the documentation of its production process in December.

The samples are being studied by the NNK. CanSino Biologics said in a statement on Monday that clinical trials of the vaccine have shown that a single dose is 65.7% effective at preventing symptomatic Covid-19. However, the jab has been found to be 90.9% effective when it came to preventing severe illness from the virus, it said.

One scientist involved in the development of the vaccine told Chinese public television earlier this month that one dose of the jab provided protection against the virus for six months, while two doses provided immunity for up to two years.