BFF-37 EU to have enough vaccines for 70% of adults ‘in July’

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HEALTH-VIRUS-EU-VACCINE

EU to have enough vaccines for 70% of adults ‘in July’

PUURS, Belgium, April 23, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – The EU coronavirus
vaccine programme will secure enough doses to immunise 70 percent of
adults by the end of July, European Commission chief Ursula von der
Leyen said Friday.

The EU chief had previously set a goal of late September, but
announced the new target during a visit to a Belgian vaccine plant
that is ramping up production.

“I’m confident we will have enough doses to vaccinate 70 percent of
all EU adults already in July,” von der Leyen said, at a factory
producing the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.

Von der Leyen said the European Union would “in the next days”
conclude a new contract with the firm — already a mainstay of the
European effort — for an additional 1.8 billion doses of
second-generation jabs in 2022 and 2023.

The Pfizer vaccine, developed by German partner BioNTech, is
expensive compared to some competitors and uses the mRNA technique
that can be adapted to future coronavirus variants.

The European Commission’s vaccine effort to jointly purchase
vaccines for the 27 member states got off to a rocky start, with
delivery shortfalls, particularly from UK-based AstraZeneca.

But von der Leyen thanked Pfizer and its subcontractor in Puurs for
its “enormous effort” in building up supply.

“So we negotiated together a second contract already early in
January, and to accelerate the delivery of vaccine,” she said, at a
joint news conference with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla.

“I have outlined the challenges going from vaccinating potentially
children and teenagers to having a boost to increase immunity after a
certain amount of time, and mainly to prepare for… variants that
might occur.

“And here the technology of mRNA is incredibly agile. So there is a
limited amount of time that is needed to, if I may say so, engineer
the mRNA in a way that it can adapt to potential escape vaccines.”

The European Commission is drawing up plans to take legal action
against another pharma giant AstraZeneca over its failure to meet
vaccine delivery targets.
Von der Leyen did not address this, but said the question of whether
drug companies had proven “reliable partners” had been taken into
account in the ongoing contract negotiations.

– ‘On track to exceed’ –

Pfizer boss Bourla said his company was “really on track to exceed”
commitments it had made to the EU and will deliver 250 million doses
by the end of the second quarter, a four-fold increase on the first
quarter this year.

The visit with von der Leyen to the plant in Belgium underlined
Europe’s role as a one of the globe’s vaccine-producing powerhouses.

The EU’s medicines regulator on Friday gave permission for the
facility in Puurs to expand its production capacity by 20 percent,
with Pfizer aiming to start churning out 100 million doses a month
there from May.

Von der Leyen said that so far 150 million doses of vaccine had been
delivered across the EU and over 123 million jabs given to people in
the bloc.

She said the EU has exported 155 million doses to 87 countries
around the world since December — a bid to allay fears that Brussels
was closing up shop after introducing export controls in the face of
delivery shortfalls.

BSS/AFP/MRU/2317hrs