Budapest, Jan 31 (IANS) Hungary authorized the use of China's Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine, Hungarian Chief Medical Officer Cecilia Muller said.

"Today the National Institute of Pharmacy and Nutrition gave its approval for the Sinopharm vaccine," Muller told a briefing, Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday.

Besides the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines acquired through the European Union, Hungary has also approved Russia's Sputnik V and the British AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines.

As the world is struggling to contain the pandemic, vaccination is underway in some countries with the already-authorized coronavirus vaccines.

Meanwhile, 236 candidate vaccines are still being developed worldwide -- 63 of them in clinical trials -- in countries including Germany, China, Russia, Britain and the United States, according to information released by the World Health Organization on Tuesday.

--IANS int/