European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (Credit: EU)
By Gary Raynaldo DIPLOMATIC TIMES
The European Union has agreed to a contract extension with Pfizer-BioNTech to purchase up to 1.8 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses through 2023. This will be the EU bloc’s largest contract to date.
By securing up to 1.8 billion doses under a new contract with @BioNTech_Group @Pfizer, we are reinforcing our preparedness for the years to come.
And Europe will remain open. We will continue exporting vaccines, because vaccination is the lasting way out of this global pandemic. pic.twitter.com/hHpLUaQZt4
— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) May 8, 2021
The EU said it is committed to ensuring that safe vaccines reach all corners of the world. The Commission and EU countries have pledged over €2.2 billion to COVAX, the global initiative aimed at ensuring equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines, and are supporting vaccination campaigns in partner countries. On 14 April, the European Commission reached an agreement with BioNTech-Pfizer to speed up the delivery of vaccines. Some 50 million additional doses, initially foreseen for the fourth quarter of 2021, will be delivered in the second quarter. To prepare for the future, the Commission said it entered into a deal with BioNTech-Pfizer for a third contract for 1.8 billion doses of vaccine .
The European Commission said it has been negotiating intensely to build a diversified portfolio of vaccines for EU citizens at fair prices. Deliveries of vaccine doses to EU countries have increased steadily since December. Vaccination gathers pace across the EU.
The Commission has so far given 4 conditional marketing authorisations for the vaccines developed by BioNTech and Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Janssen Pharmaceutica NV following EMA positive assessment of their safety and efficacy. Several other vaccines are at different stages of assessment by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
The Commission is working closely with the industry to step up vaccine manufacturing capacity in the EU.
