BRUSSELS -
The EU Commission has reached an agreement with Pfizer
to accelerate the supply of vaccines, with
50 million additional doses
delivered in the second quarter, starting in April.
They will be distributed on the basis of the population.
This was stated by the president of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
The "good news" is that
"vaccinations are accelerating,"
member states "received 126 million doses yesterday. I am happy to announce that today we have reached
100 million vaccines administered
, a milestone to be proud of. Of these 100 million, more than a quarter are second doses, "von der Leyen explained.
"At some point, we may need
booster vaccines to strengthen and prolong immunity,
and if there is a variant that eludes the vaccine, we will need to develop vaccines that are adapted to the new variant and we will need them soon and in the future. sufficient quantity ", added the president of the Commission, underlining the need to" prepare for what will happen in the future "in order to" definitively defeat the virus ".
"The Covid pandemic remains a
serious threat to people's health and livelihoods
, we are in a race against time - he said -. The sooner we reach our goal of vaccinating 70% of the adult population, the greater the chances of containing. the virus ".
"We are now
negotiating with BioNTech-Pfizer for a third contract
" for the supply of vaccines that "provides for the
delivery of 1.8 billion doses in the period from 2021 to 2023
".
This was announced by von der Leyen, specifying that the agreement "will entail that not only the production of vaccines, but also that of essential components, are based in the European Union".
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