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The European Commission spokesman, Eric Mamer, defended on Friday the bloc's countries' right to buy any anti-COVID-19 vaccine pending approval by the governing mechanism for the said procedure on the continent.
His words refer to the Russian vaccine Sputnik V in the process of acceptance by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and only used within the supranational bloc to date in Hungary and Slovakia.
European Union (EU) countries that decide to purchase these vaccines will assume full responsibility for their actions, Mammer said, adding that from a legal point of view, EU states have the right to acquire drugs from suppliers that are not part of the European advance purchase agreements.
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In recent days, the EMA started the authorization process for the Russian vaccine Sputnik V, with immunity results above 90 percent, according to studies published by the Moscow-based Gamaleya Epidemiology and Microbiology Research Center.
The drug should receive a conditional use license through this procedure and would join those already approved from suppliers BioNtech/Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca.
EU member states have legal right to buy Sputnik V vaccine — European Commissionhttps://t.co/XKjZgqnjwE pic.twitter.com/4ElNK5lcB9
— TASS (@tassagency_en) March 5, 2021
The immunizers produced by CureVac, Johnson & Johnson, and Sanofi-GSK are under study by the EU health authorities.
As an alternative way for the use within the bloc of some vaccine, there is the approval of emergency use, a mechanism that allows the acquisition of drugs not validated for marketing by the European Commission, according to Mammer.
The European health authorities currently report 37,501,177 people infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, of whom 855,704 have died.
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