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The EU has concluded a deal with Pfizer-BioNTech for up to 1.8 billion extra doses of its Covid-19 vaccine, according to European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen.
“Happy to announce that the EU Commission has just approved a contract for guaranteed 900 million doses (+900 million options) with Pfizer-BioNTech for 2021-2023,” she tweeted from an EU summit in Portugal.
“Other contracts and other vaccine technologies will follow,” she promised.
?? vaccination is progressing well.
Now we prepare the next stage in our response:
➡️giving booster shots
➡️dealing with possible escape variants
➡️allowing for vaccination of children & teenagers— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) May 8, 2021
Ms von der Leyen said Europe is preparing the next stage of its response including giving booster shots, allowing for vaccination of children and teenagers, and dealing with possible escape variants.
Earlier, the President of the European Council said the bloc is ready to discuss a US proposal to lift patents on Covid-19 vaccines once the details are clear.
“We are ready to engage on this topic, as soon as a concrete proposal would be put on the table,” Charles Michel said as EU leaders discussed the issue in Porto.
Mr. Michel, who represents the EU’s 27 national leaders, cautioned however that the bloc has doubts that the idea “in the short term, that it’s the magic bullet.”
The quickest solution to ramp up the distribution of vaccines globally was exports and the EU encouraged “all the partners to facilitate the export of doses,” he said.
Mr. Michel spoke on the second day of an EU summit that was to also feature a bilateral meeting between the EU and India, where authorities on Saturday said the pandemic killed 4,000 people in a single day.
“It misses the point to say that (a patent waiver) is the emergency,” French President Emmanuel Macron said.
“The emergency is to produce more and increase solidarity now,” he said.
Meanwhile, Pope Francis offered his support for waiving coronavirus vaccine patents to boost supply to poorer countries, in a video message to the “Vax Live” concert.
He condemned “closed nationalism, which prevents, for example, an internationalism of vaccines”, and spoke of “a spirit of justice that mobilises us to ensure universal access to the vaccine and the temporary suspension of intellectual property rights”.
