Hungary Approves China's Sinopharm COVID-19 Vaccine

The AP reported Hungary’s medicine and food safety regulator approved Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine BBIBP-CorV for emergency use on January 29, 2021, making it the first country in the European Union to do so.

Hungary’s new vaccine approval procedure includes any vaccine that has been administered to at least one million people worldwide may now be approved for use in Hungary without being assessed by the country’s medicines regulator.

China-based Sinopharm's BBIBP-CorV COVID-19 is an inactivated vaccine made of virus particles grown in culture and lack disease-producing capability. This vaccine candidate was developed by Sinopharm’s Wuhan Institute of Biological Products Co. and the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. On December 31, 2020, China's National Medical Products Administration announced the experimental vaccine was approved.