BUDAPEST— Hungary expects to receive 500,000 doses of a Chinese COVID-19 vaccine next week and will begin administering them as soon as possible, a government official told a press conference in Budapest on Thursday.

Gergely Gulyas, chief of staff to Prime Minister Viktor Orban, said the Sinopharm vaccine would undergo assessment by Hungary’s National Public Health Center before being put into circulation.

“This is the safest vaccine given that it has already been administered to 30 million people in the world,” Gulyas said.

Hungary, which has been critical of the European Union’s sluggish vaccine rollout, also expects 200,000 doses of the Russian vaccine Sputnik V to arrive this month. Doctors in Budapest were instructed this week to choose patients under 75 and with no chronic health conditions to receive the first round of Sputnik V jabs.