Hungary emerges as an EU vaccination star amid surging cases

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungary has emerged as a European Union leader in COVID-19 vaccinations thanks to a strategy that sought shots from Russia and China as well as from inside the bloc, spurring increasing trust in jabs from eastern nations.

But that strategy is up against a skyrocketing rise in new COVID-19 cases and deaths blamed on a more infectious virus variant first found in Britain that is putting an unprecedented strain on Hungary's health care system. A new round of lockdown measures took effect Monday to curb the surge, which saw deaths averaging around 150 per day and hospitalizations and new cases breaking records set during the previous peak in December.

As of Friday, 11.9% of Hungary's adult population had received at least one dose of a vaccine. That is the second-highest rate of vaccination in the 27-member EU after the small island nation of Malta and substantially above the EU average of 7%. With five vaccines approved for use in Hungary, more than in any other EU nation, more than 1.2 million Hungarians have received a jab in the country of fewer than 10 million, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The vaccination campaign is only growing in importance, for Hungary has the 7th worst death rate per 1 million inhabitants in the world, at 16,627 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins.

Dr. Karoly Dery, a general practitioner in Hatvan, a town 35 miles east of Budapest, said the rapid spread of the virus has led to increased acceptance of all vaccines.

“I always tell anti-vaccination people that any vaccine is better than a month on a ventilator and possible death,” Dr. Dery told The Associated Press. “There’s nothing uglier or more awful than death by suffocation.”

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