Russia’s Sputnik vaccine attracts Eastern Europe, worrying the EU

As the European Union strives to step up its launch of coronavirus vaccines across the 27-member bloc, Russia’s Covid strike is proving enticing for its friends in Eastern Europe, creating another possible rupture in the region.

The Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary and Slovakia have all expressed interest in procuring and developing the Russian “Sputnik V” vaccine, an action that could undermine an EU approach to the approval and administration of coronavirus vaccines.

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said on Sunday that his country could use the Sputnik V vaccine even without the approval of the EU Medicines Agency, the European Medicines Agency.

It comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin and Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz received a phone call last Friday discussing “possible supplies of Russian Sputnik V vaccine to Austria, as well as its possible joint production,” the Kremlin said, noting that Austria they had initiated the call. Austria has so far indicated that it will not bypass the EMA in terms of vaccine approval.

Hungary, an EU country with close ties to Brussels and whose leader, Viktor Orban, is seen as a close ally of Putin, has not expressed such hesitation. It became the first European country to authorize in January – bypassing the EMA – and purchased the Sputnik V vaccine.

It looks like the country expects 2 million doses of Sputnik V vaccine to be delivered in the next three months, according to the Moscow Times. Hungary also approved China’s Sinopharm vaccine last month, again going against the requirement when it comes to EU vaccine approval.

On Monday, Slovakia became the second European country to announce that it had purchased the Sputnik V vaccine, providing 2 million doses of the shot. Slovakia’s health minister said it would not be administered immediately, however, because it still needed a green light from the national drug regulator.

The pivot to Russia’s vaccine comes amid widespread frustration at the slow pace of EU vaccine launches. She was hampered by the bloc’s decision to buy vaccines jointly, and her orders came later than other countries, including the United Kingdom and the United States.

Production issues and bureaucracy – and for some countries, vaccine hesitation – have also been obstacles to implementation.

However, the move by some Eastern European countries to unilaterally approve Russia’s vaccine is bound to raise concerns in Brussels, as it undermines the EU’s desire for a unified approach and a sense of fairness in vaccine distribution.

There were also concerns about Sputnik V specifically, although subsequent data confirmed the efficacy and credibility of the vaccine.

The vaccine was approved by the Russian health regulator in August last year, before the end of clinical trials, leading to skepticism among experts that it may not meet strict safety and efficacy standards. Some experts claimed that the Kremlin was eager to win the race to develop a Covid vaccine.

However, the mid-term analysis of the Phase 3 clinical trials of the shot, which involved 20,000 participants and was published in the medical journal The Lancet in early February, found that the vaccine was 91.6% effective against symptomatic Covid-19 infection. .

In a companion article to the Lancet, Ian Jones, a professor of virology at the University of Reading, England, noted that “the development of the Sputnik V vaccine has been criticized for inappropriate haste. But the result reported here is clear and the scientific principle of vaccination is demonstrated, which means that another vaccine can join the fight to reduce the incidence of Covid-19. “

However, the Gamaleya National Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology in Moscow, which developed the vaccine, has not yet submitted an application to the EMA for a marketing authorization for the vaccine, the EU Medicines Agency said in early February.

RDIF, Russia’s sovereign wealth fund that supported the development of Sputnik V, told CNBC on Monday that it had asked the EU’s drug agency for a continuous review of the vaccine in mid-February. The EMA did not confirm this, but CNBC contacted the EMA for comment.

The European Commission has already warned Hungary, albeit indirectly, against the use of the Russian vaccine before the EMA approves it. In November, a Commission spokesman told Reuters that “the question is whether a Member State would like to give its citizens a vaccine that has not been reviewed by the EMA”, adding that public confidence in vaccination could be affected.

“This is where the authorization process and the trust in the vaccine meet. If our citizens begin to question the safety of a vaccine, if they did not go through a rigorous scientific assessment to prove its safety and effectiveness, it will be much harder to vaccinate a sufficient proportion of the population, “said the carrier. word, Reuters reported.

However, Hungary’s decision to take it alone when it comes to the Sputnik V vaccine is not surprising to EU observers. The country’s right-wing leader, Viktor Orban – a “strong man” like Putin in Russia – has had several disputes with the EU executive in recent years, particularly over signs of growing government authoritarianism. The erosion of judicial independence and freedom of the press in Hungary is a special concern for the EU. However, the Hungarian government rejects such criticism.

Gustav Gressel, a politician at the European Council on External Relations, told CNBC on Monday that Hungary’s actions are part of Orban’s campaign to spread the future “declining, declining EU” and Hungary in the East, with Russia and China, ” a trend has been going on for some time.

Meanwhile, Daragh McDowell, the head of Europe and Russia’s chief analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, described the geopolitics surrounding Sputnik V and the EU as “political theater more than anything else.”

“For Hungary and Austria there is an element of foreign policy signaling involved here, because both Kurz and Orban generally had a closer relationship with Putin than their European counterparts. In the case of the Czech Republic, the momentum seems to have been more to show that the government is “doing something” in the face of a rapid increase in the number of cases in February, “he said.

There are also doubts about whether Russia has the capacity to mass-produce and deliver the Sputnik V vaccine to Europe on a larger scale.

“While the Sputnik vaccine seems to be an effective vaccine in principle, Russia has great difficulty in getting the correct mass production … there is still not enough Sputnik vaccine (which is produced),” Gressel said. McDowell noted that “the question is whether Sputnik V can make a visible difference in terms of existing regulatory and logistical issues and whether the vaccine can be produced in sufficient numbers either by Russian manufacturers or under license.”