Czech Republic to get additional 80,000 vaccines from Hungary, Austria and Slovenia

Hungary will send the Czech Republic 40,000 vaccines against Covid in May, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš confirmed on Saturday. Likewise, Austria has promised to send the Czech Republic 30,000 vaccines and Slovenia has pledged to send 10,000 vaccines. The Czech prime minister thanked the countries’ leaders for what he said was “a true show of solidarity”.

The gesture came shortly after a bitter row over vaccine distribution in the EU, which ended in the Czech Republic, Austria and Slovenia being excluded from the final agreement.

Under the deal, 24 EU countries will provide 2.8 million additional doses of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine to five of the hardest-hit member states: Estonia, Latvia, Croatia, Slovakia, and Bulgaria.

The Czech Republic, Austria and Slovenia, which consider the new redistribution mechanism unfair, refused to support the deal.