The European Commission (EC) agreed this Sunday with BioNTech-Pfizer accelerate delivery of its coronavirus vaccine to community club countries, with the Twenty-seven receiving an additional 20 million doses during the first quarter of 2022.
Thus, BioNTech-Pfizer will deliver to the community club five million more doses than originally planned during January, an additional five million in February and ten million more in March.
Those 20 million vaccines are in addition to the 195 million doses that were originally planned to be distributed among the Member States between January and March 2022.
Therefore, the countries of the European Union will receive 215 million doses of BioNTech-Pfizer in the first three months of next year.
Brussels recalled in a statement that last Thursday it also agreed with Moderna to deliver additional doses during the first quarter of 2022.
The EC assured that the advance of injections “will be especially useful for member states with a short-term need for additional doses of vaccine.”
“Given the deterioration of the epidemiological situation in the European Union in recent months, full vaccination and the deployment of booster doses remain one of the main health priorities of the EU,” he said.
“Considering the expected rapid increase in infections due to the omicron variant, this is now even more urgent than ever,” he added.
Brussels said it continues to work “closely” with vaccine manufacturers to “further accelerate” the delivery of injections to Member States, “so that vaccination and booster can be increased in the coming months and weeks.”
He stressed that the Commission and the countries have also activated “a first option to order more than 200 million doses, under the third contract with BioNTech-Pfizer.”
This order “also covers vaccines adapted to the omicron variant, if those vaccines are available.”
“With this commission, the EU is preparing in case adapted vaccines are needed. The delivery of those more than 200 million doses is expected from the second quarter of 2022 ″, said the EC.
Those 200 million are in addition to the other 450 million doses that were already expected to be distributed in 2022, according to the agreement already signed with BioNTech-Pfizer.
As a result, BioNTech-Pfizer will deliver a total of 650 million injections to the community club in 2022.
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