Germany mulls possible order of Russian COVID-19 vaccine

BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s health minister said Thursday that the European Union doesn't plan to order Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine but his country will hold talks with Russia on whether an individual order makes sense.

The EU’s executive Commission said Wednesday it won’t place orders for Sputnik V on member countries’ behalf, as it did with other manufacturers, Health Minister Jens Spahn told WDR public radio.

Spahn said he told his fellow EU health ministers that Germany, which has strongly backed joint EU orders, “will talk bilaterally to Russia, first of all about when it could come and in what quantities.” He said “to really make a difference in our current situation, the deliveries would have to come in the next two to four or five months already.”

Otherwise, he said, Germany would have “more than enough vaccine” already.

Amid a slow start to the vaccine rollout in Germany and across the EU, there have been calls from some German politicians — particularly at state level — to order Sputnik V.

Spahn underscored the German government’s position that, to be deployed in the country, Sputnik V must be cleared for use by the EMA and “for that, Russia must deliver data.” The EU regulator started a rolling review of the vaccine in early March.

Elsewhere in the EU, Hungary in February became the first country in the bloc to start using Sputnik V and China's Sinopharm vaccine, neither of which has been approved by the European Medicines Agency, the EU's medicines regulator.

The government of Slovakia collapsed after its former prime minister orchestrated a secret deal to buy 2 million Sputnik V doses, despite disagreements with his coalition partners.

And Chancellor Sebastian Kurz of Austria has said his country is in the closing...