The Czech Republic has asked China for deliveries of coronavirus vaccines made by China\u2019s Sinopharm, the Czech president\u2019s spokesman said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The central European country of 10.7 million has been one of the world\u2019s worst-hit by the coronavirus pandemic, with hospitals reporting full capacity and the death toll reaching 20,941 as of Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
President Milos Zeman, who has long lobbied for closer relations with China and Russia, asked his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping for the supplies, acting upon request from Prime Minister Andrej Babis, Zeman\u2019s spokesman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAccording to a report from the Czech embassy in Beijing, the Chinese side has decided to immediately meet this request,\u201d the spokesman said in a statement on the president\u2019s website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A spokesman for Babis said he was not aware of the request when asked by Reuters. Babis did not mention it at a government news conference that closed just as the announcement was made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Like other EU states hampered by delays in deliveries from the three producers whose shots have been registered in the UE, Pfizer\/BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca, the Czech government has sought to boost supplies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It won an agreement for advance supply of 100,000 of extra doses of the Pfizer\/BioNTech vaccine from EU partners earlier on Wednesday, on top of 100,000 from France offered last week, and smaller amounts from Germany and Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Babis has reversed himself several times on possibly using Russia\u2019s Sputnik vaccine without approval by the European drug regulator EMA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The country\u2019s Health Ministry, authorized to grant an exception for usage of unregistered vaccines, has insisted it would not endorse any without EMA registration. A spokeswoman said on Wednesday that policy remained unchanged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Czech Republic has asked China for deliveries of coronavirus vaccines made by China\u2019s Sinopharm, the Czech president\u2019s spokesman said on Wednesday. The central European country of 10.7 million has been one of the world\u2019s worst-hit by the coronavirus pandemic, with hospitals reporting full capacity and the death toll reaching 20,941 as of Tuesday. President […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1515,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n