Hungarian parliament speaker inoculated with China's Sinopharm vaccine against COVID-19

BUDAPEST -- Hungarian Parliament Speaker Laszlo Kover has received an injection of China's Sinopharm vaccine against COVID-19, according to the Hungarian news agency MTI.

Kover received the first dose of the Chinese vaccine last week, and the second dose will be given to him on April 1, MTI quoted Parliament Press Chief Zoltan Szilagyi as saying.

The Hungarian government has been enriching its vaccination program with Russian and Chinese vaccines to fight the third wave of the pandemic in the country. So far, it has gained access to vaccines from five producers --Sinopharm, Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Sputnik V.

Hungary, the first European Union member state to buy and authorize the use of Chinese vaccines, started to administer the Sinopharm vaccine on Feb 24.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban received an injection of the Sinopharm vaccine on Feb 28, two days after Hungarian President Janos Ader opted for the Chinese vaccine.

Hungary on Wednesday registered 5,653 new cases and 179 more deaths in the past 24 hours, raising its national total to 480,860 and the death toll to 16,325, according to official data.

So far, 340,844 people have recovered. Currently, 8,348 patients are being treated in hospitals, including 844 on ventilators, showed figures from the government's coronavirus information website.

As of Wednesday, 1,107,791 people have received at least one vaccine jab, while 317,906 have received two jabs, according to the website.