At least a million citizens of the European Union, most of whom are Hungarians, will not be able to travel to the United States even after November 8, when the latter lifts the ban on travel to 33 countries of the world, including 26 Schengen countries, Ireland and the UK.
Disclosing details of the lifting of the travel ban for vaccinated travelers, the White House said that those who have been vaccinated with one of the vaccines approved by the US Federal Drug Administration (FDA) and the World Health Organization will be eligible to enter the United States after the first week of November. (WHO).
So far, none of them have approved the Russian vaccine COVID-19 Sputnik V, according to SchengenVisaInfo.com.
Data from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) show that Sputnik V is being administered by two EU members, Hungary and Slovakia.
So far Hungary has administered 1,806,156 doses of Sputnik V out of 2 million purchased, and Slovakia – 37,677 doses out of 200,000 purchased. Considering that Sputnik V is a two-dose vaccine, this means that approximately 903,078 Hungarians and 18,838 Slovaks were vaccinated with Sputnik V.
No other EU or Schengen country has introduced Sputnik vaccine on its territory.
The European microstate has also vaccinated more than 70 percent of its adult population with the Russian COVID-19 vaccine, which is also the only vaccine used in this country of about 33,000 citizens.
In early September, the San Marino Ministry of Health announced that the vaccine was highly effective against the virus.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has also not yet approved the vaccine, although it began reviewing it on March 4, 2021. Moreover, it was recently revealed that the agency has postponed approval of the vaccine until the first quarter of 2022. This decision was made after the manufacturer allegedly did not provide the necessary data for a review scheduled for the end of November.
The agency also asked the Russian manufacturer to supplement the dossier on the production of Sputnik V, including information on the active ingredients and the bottling of the final product.
To date, about 73 countries have officially recognized the Sputnik V vaccine, including Brazil, United Arab Emirates, San Marino, North Macedonia, Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Bahrain, Belarus, Bangladesh, Hungary and India.