Hungary to donate 40,000 Covid-19 vaccines to the Czech Republic

Hungary will send 40,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines to the Czech Republic in May, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said on Facebook today. He did not elaborate on the kind of the delivery.

Szijjártó said that by that time, Hungary would have enough vaccines for its own population.

Szijjártó stressed that Austria and Slovenia also wanted to help the Czech Republic, the Hungarian news agency MTI said.

The Czech Republic is one of the countries that are in a difficult situation due to the poor provision of vaccines by the European Commission, Szijjártó said.

He added that thanks to the early purchases of vaccines by the Hungarian government and the vaccines ensured by the EU, his country was on top of the vaccination per head within the EU.

Prime Minister Andrej Babiš told Czech Television on Saturday that the 40,000 vaccines Hungary has promised to deliver to the Czech Republic will be from Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna.

Along with the 30,000 vaccines from Austria and 10,000 from Slovenia, this is more than the loss of the 70,000 doses the Czech Republic would have received from EU negotiations, Babiš said.

On Friday, Austria announced it would provide 30,000 Covid-19 vaccines to the Czech Republic. Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said this was a gesture of solidarity after the EU had failed in efforts to resolve inequalities in the distribution of the vaccines among EU member countries.

Kurz also said other countries were about to take a similar step towards the Czech Republic.

On Friday, Prime Minister Andrej Babiš tweeted that Slovenia, too, had expressed its solidarity, and will send 10,000 vaccines to the Czech Republic.