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István Ujhelyi, an opposition Socialist MEP, on Wednesday slammed the government for not planning to cooperate in shaping the common European Union healthcare policy, and accused the government of “turning quality of health care into a sovereignty issue”.
Ujhelyi, who sits on the European Parliament’s public health committee, told a press conference on Wednesday, marking World Health Day, that he had written a letter to Ildikó Horváth, the state secretary for health care, asking how the government planned to join the EU’s European health-care union.
He was “stunned to learn”, he added, that the government had not wanted an input into health-care competencies laid down in the EU’s founding document or to participate in programmes shaping common health-care policy.
AstraZeneca: Hungary to Follow EMA Advice, Chief Medical Officer says
Hungary will follow the European drug regulator’s advice on how to proceed with the use of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 jab, the chief medical officer told an online press briefing on Wednesday.
Cecília Müller noted that several countries have either suspended the use of the British-Swedish drugmaker’s vaccine or are limiting its use to certain age groups after reports of some of its recipients experiencing rare blood clots. She also noted that on Tuesday a senior official for the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said there was a clear link between the vaccine and rare blood clots in the brain, although its causes were unknown.
State Secy Kovács: Hungary Only Uses Safe, Effective Vaccines
Hungary only uses vaccines that have been approved by experts as safe and effective, the state secretary for international communications said on Wednesday.
Zoltán Kovács said on Facebook that while the third wave of the coronavirus epidemic was raging all over the world, the international press and some foreign politicians “constantly feel inclined to criticise” Hungary’s vaccine procurements.
Clement Beaune, secretary of state for European affairs in the French government, has “joined the line”, saying in a recent interview that Hungary was playing a “double game” by also procuring Eastern vaccines, he added.