Cecília Müller noted that the Moderna vaccine was granted conditional marketing authorization by the European Commission on Wednesday.

The European Union has placed a joint order for 160m doses of the vaccine, the second to be cleared for use in Europe.

Müller said the additional vaccine could accelerate the pace of inoculations.

Hungary started vaccinating healthcare workers with a COVID-19 vaccine developed by BioNTech and Pfizer on the day after Christmas.