Covid vaccine: Sputnik safest, Pfizer's shot worst? Row over Hungary data

The Russian vaccine has six times lower infection rate than Pfizer's

The Hungarian government has come out with a table that gives a break-up of the number of infections and deaths after secondary inoculations with the vaccines currently in use in the country.

According to this, Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine has been recognised as the safest and most efficient vaccine, while Pfizer performs the worst. Accurate conclusions cannot be drawn from the table since it ignores multiple conditions that would level the playing field of its variables, and allow for the valid comparison of vaccine types, according to a report in Hungary Today.

Earlier, Minister of the Prime Minister’s Office Gergely Gulyás had asserted that the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine and the Russian Sputnik V vaccine are both better than any Western vaccine.

“SputnikV has the best safety (7-32 times fewer deaths cases) and efficacy (2-7 times fewer Covid infections) per 100,000 vaccinated,” according to the vaccine’s official Twitter account. Thus, according to the Hungarian data, Sputnik V has up to 32 times fewer fatalities and six times lower infection rate than the Pfizer vaccine. Hungary was the first European Union nation to receive Sputnik V samples for tests in November 2020.