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The European Commission presents a plan to combat new variants of the virus

2021-02-17T16:31:36.197Z


The strategy includes signing new agreements with pharmaceutical companies and accelerating the approval of vaccines


The European Commission has presented this Wednesday a plan of more than 225 million euros to combat the new variants of covid-19: it plans to update and sign new contracts with pharmaceutical companies, accelerate the approval of vaccines, increase tests to detect the genome of the virus and collaborate with Israel and Switzerland in clinical trials.

Brussels has ensured that, "if necessary", current contracts will have to be "updated" to adapt to protection against variants, given that pharmaceutical companies are analyzing the efficacy of their vaccines against the modifications of the virus that emerged in the United Kingdom , South Africa, Brazil and Uganda.

And in this sense, the Community Executive has said that it is necessary to assume the "lessons learned" and guarantee that in the updates of the contracts they are specified in a "detailed and credible" plan on the production of the drugs, after the president Commissioner, Ursula Von der Leyen, publicly acknowledged that Brussels overestimated the manufacturing capacity of the laboratories.

  • The new variants of the virus face the more than 100 million people who have already passed the covid

Through the working group created by the Commission to speed up production, Brussels will work with companies to identify the main bottlenecks that slow down the process and promote the voluntary exchange of patents between companies so that they can manufacture the vaccines of others. Business.

In addition, the plan provides for the possibility of using "sources" from third countries if necessary, as long as they meet the security requirements of the European Union.

In video, Von der Leyen announces that the EU will receive 300 million more doses of Moderna's vaccine (Europa Press)

"Our priority is to ensure that all Europeans have access to safe and effective covid-19 vaccines as soon as possible," said Von der Leyen, adding: "We have to adapt and respond even faster" to the emergence of the variants.

The plan also contemplates that, for vaccines that have already been approved, the approval of the modifications that laboratories must introduce in their drugs to adapt to the variants be accelerated, without having to go through the entire review process to which they already have been previously submitted to the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

The intention is to use the same approval mechanism that is used in the influenza vaccine, which has been proven effective for years.

In order to combat the new variants, the Commission wants that at least 5% of the tests with a positive result be sequenced the genome of the virus to detect its modifications.

It also wants to create a network of 16 European Union countries, along with Israel and Switzerland, to participate in new clinical trials.

The European Union buys 300 million more doses of Moderna vaccine

The European Commission (EC) approved this Wednesday an agreement with the American pharmaceutical company Moderna to purchase 300 million more doses of its vaccine against covid-19 for the countries of the European Union, which will be added to the 160 million doses already had agreed with the company last year.

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, made this announcement at the presentation of the new European Union strategy to boost research, production and authorization of vaccines against new variants of the coronavirus.

The new agreement with Moderna comes on the same day that Pfizer and BioNTech have announced that they will provide 200 million additional doses of their vaccine to the EU states after also closing a contract with the Community Executive, which has secured the option of obtaining another 100 million doses.

Source: elparis

All life articles on 2021-02-17

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