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Tag: EU Covid 19 vaccines

  • EU leaders grapple with surge of infections, vaccine points

    European Union leaders have did not settle a battle in regards to the distribution of COVID-19 photographs amongst member states however pledged to strengthen vaccine export controls and manufacturing on EU soil amid a scarcity of doses and spikes in new instances.
    Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz criticised the allocation of photographs within the EU, saying that some international locations have been receiving greater than their fair proportion at the price of others. As the chief of a coalition of six international locations, he demanded a correction mechanism, elevating tensions between capitals from the place the leaders have been holding their distant summit.
    “When member states have a lot less vaccines available to them than others, then I think this is a big issue for Europe,” Kurz stated. “This could cause damage to the European Union like we haven’t seen in a long time.”
    At the tip of the summit, the EU’s 27 nations have been nonetheless locked in a dispute over how an upcoming batch of 10 million doses could possibly be allotted to slim the vaccine hole between member states and the leaders determined to push the talks to a future assembly of their ambassadors.

    Under the joint procurement program arrange by the European Commission, doses are allotted on a professional rata foundation, however some nations are taking lower than their share. A big majority of EU members suppose the system is working nicely however stated some nations made a mistake to deal with AstraZeneca photographs as a substitute of diversifying their vaccine portfolios.
    AstraZeneca photographs are cheaper and simpler to deal with than vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna however the Anglo-Swedish firm has been at loggerheads with the bloc over repeated failures to ship doses agreed of their contract.

    The unfold of extra contagious virus variants has pushed hospitals in some EU international locations to their restrict. That, mixed with the shortage of vaccines accessible in Europe, has pushed a number of EU nations to impose strict lockdown measures over the Easter holidays.

  • EU procures further 300 million doses of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine

    The European Union on Friday secured a deal for an extra 300 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech in an try to allow member nations to ramp up their vaccination programmes. President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen stated the transfer was a “very positive development.”“We right now have access to 300 million doses of the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine. We now have agreed with BioNTech-Pfizer to extend the contract. With the new agreement, we could purchase a total of up to an additional 300 million doses of the vaccine. In other words, this will allow us to double the number of doses,” Von der Leyen stated.Moreover, 75 million of those new doses can be accessible by the second quarter of the yr and the remaining doses can be delivered within the third and fourth quarters, she added. Von der Leyen additionally stated that the vaccine has already been permitted by Europe’s regulator, the European Medicines Agency (EMA), and would subsequently require no new negotiations for the deal. Also, the vaccine has been authorised already thus making it simpler for the member states to proceed their inoculation program, she added.On Wednesday, Europe granted its approval to Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine, the second in European Union. “With these two authorised vaccines, we have already secured a number of doses that we need to vaccinate 380 million Europeans. This is more than 80 per cent of the European population,” von der Leyen added. She additionally expressed the idea that different vaccines would even be permitted within the “coming weeks and months.”When requested if particular person member nations of the EU can be allowed to barter their very own offers with vaccine producers, von der Leyen stated “There will be no parallel negotiations; no parallel contracts. The framework we are all working in is a framework of 27 [nations]. Together we are negotiating, together we are procuring.”Earlier on Monday, Germany stated that the nation has signed a memorandum of understanding with BioNTech for supplying 30 million doses of their vaccine on a bilateral foundation. The nation additionally stated that the EU was conscious of the MoU, in response to a information report by Reuters.