Bitter infighting has broken out among EU states over the allocation of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine – with France and Germany accused of trying to out-muscle smaller countries in the battle for supplies. The EU’s determination to agree a block-wide vaccination programme across all 27 member states allowed the UK to win the race to first approve the vaccine. Some of the less wealthy EU countries, such as Poland and Hungary, do not have the refrigeration facilities to store the drug at -70C, meaning it could be well into the new year before the inoculations start there. It has led to demands within Hungary for approval of Russia’s controversial Sputnik V vaccine, which is undergoing trials despite a lack of publicly available data. A source said: ‘On issues such as the vaccine, the EU is a slow and unresponsive bloc.

Source: Daily Mail December 06, 2020 00:00 UTC