A few hours before a European Summit on the pandemic and at a time when most Member States are reintroducing restrictive measures, the European Commission presented, on Thursday 15 October, a Communication aimed at accompanying the deployment and distribution of future vaccines against Covid-19.
This complements the June European strategy on vaccination, which instructed the Commission to conclude contracts with the pharmaceutical industry to ensure access to their vaccines once they have completed clinical trials (see EUROPE 12508/4).
“Unlike the first wave, we now have a framework in place. Today is a milestone in this process. It’s one piece of the European response puzzle”, said Commission Vice-President Margarítis Schinás.
The watchword: anticipation
The Communication encourages Member States to act now to be ready as soon as a vaccine against Covid-19 is available on the European market. When might that be? “I don't want to speculate, any prediction at this stage would be risky. Perhaps we could have a first vaccine by next year”, said Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides.
The document calls on Member States to take immediate steps to improve their communication in order to combat hesitation about the vaccine and to put everything in place to be able to “deliver and distribute vaccines in an ordered manner, within a given timeframe and in line with a rapidly changing epidemiological situation”.
It urged Member States to strengthen their immunisation services over the next 2 months: for the workforce, they could already train and recruit staff, potentially involving students or retirees. For equipment supplies, attention should be paid to potential manufacturing bottlenecks, EU joint procurement procedures should be used and the potential of RescEU should be exploited.
Identify priority groups
The Communication insists that access to the doses will initially be limited: the contracts already concluded with AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Sanofi-GSK provide that all Member States will have access to the same number of doses at the same time, depending on their population (unless other Member States agree otherwise).
The Commission therefore encourages Member States to identify priority groups. "These decisions should be driven by two criteria: to protect the most vulnerable groups and individuals, and to slow down and even stop the spread of the disease”, says the document, which identifies, for example, caregivers, people over 60, vulnerable populations, key workers outside the health sector (such as teachers, the food sector, etc.), workers who cannot work remotely, etc.
The Communication also stresses the importance of ensuring that future vaccines are accessible to the target groups, both in terms of price and physical proximity. It recalls the possibility of using regulatory flexibilities, in particular with regard to labelling and packaging for a limited period of time (e.g. a leaflet only available in English at the beginning), so as not to hinder deployment.
The subject brought to the European Summit
In his speech, Margarítis Schinás welcomed the fact that the Covid-19 pandemic was being discussed at the highest level of power.
It must be said that the situation is particularly alarming in Europe, where there has been an uninterrupted increase in the number of cases over the last 3 months, which can, according to a European official, be explained by the slackening of measures taken at the height of the first wave. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen herself had to leave the Summit, which had barely started, “as a precaution”, to go into self-isolation after being informed that a member of her staff had tested positive for Covid-19 earlier in the day.
In addition to the rest, the latest draft conclusions of the EU27 this time refer to the need for coordination of testing strategies and for temporary restrictions on non-essential travel to the EU (see EUROPE 12581/2).
See the communication: https://bit.ly/37mnY31 and the draft summit conclusions: https://bit.ly/34YIIed (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)