BELGRADE, Serbia

Hungary on Wednesday became the first European Union member state to use the Chinese vaccine against COVID-19.

"Today we begin to inoculate with the Chinese vaccines," said Prime Minister Viktor Orban in a Facebook video message.

The country last week received the first 550,000 doses of the Sinopharm coronavirus vaccine.

Hungary is the first EU nation to have a vaccine agreement with Russia and China.

This month, Hungary also began administering Russia's Sputnik V vaccine, becoming the first among the EU countries. The country will purchase 5 million doses of vaccines from China and 2 million from Russia in the next four months.

The amount will be enough to vaccinate 2.5 million people in a country of nearly 10 million.