The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, called on the pharmaceutical company Pfizer on Friday 15 January to respect its commitments regarding the production of vaccines. Earlier in the day, the company had announced that its deliveries would slow down at the end of this month and the beginning of next month due to changes in the production process in order to increase the pace for the following weeks.
“Pfizer must live up to its commitments”, explained von der Leyen at a press conference with the Portuguese Prime Minister, António Costa, in Lisbon, adding that the guaranteed doses for the first quarter had to be provided urgently. However, she was optimistic, saying that she had spoken to the head of Pfizer. The latter reportedly confirmed that all the guaranteed doses for the first quarter would be delivered and that the staff is working to reduce the delivery time.
Mr Costa, for his part, encouraged other Member States to anticipate potential issues in the supply chain, explaining that his country had set up a reserve to be able to administer the second dose to people who have already received the first.
On the same day, in a letter to Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides, the health ministers of six Member States - Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Sweden - underlined their “serious concerns” about the “sustainability and credibility” of the vaccination process. “Officials responsible for vaccination in our countries were informed by BioNTech/Pfizer local representatives that deliveries to our countries will be substantially reduced in the coming weeks; some were given the deadline of 8 February 2021; some were given no information on the duration of the planned reduced deliveries”, they said, adding that they would have to inform their population that, as a result, their vaccinations would be delayed. “This situation is unacceptable. Not only does it impact the planned vaccination schedules, it also decreases the credibility of the vaccination process”, they stressed.
In Lisbon, Mrs von der Leyen recalled that with the BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, the EU had enough doses to vaccinate 80% of the European population. If AstraZeneca’s vaccine were also approved by the European Medicines Agency, the EU would have a billion doses, she said.
In the meantime, the EU must remain vigilant against the arrival of new variants of the virus. “We urgently need to increase sequencing capacity in the EU. This is the only possibility, not only to detect variants of the virus, but to react quickly to them”, warned the President of the Commission.
Asked about the introduction of a vaccination passport, Mrs von der Leyen welcomed the initiative of the Greek Prime Minister, Kyriákos Mitsotákis (see EUROPE 12634/1). She specified that there should be a certificate with a system of mutual recognition, which is a WHO requirement. “Then there is a political and legal decision on what can be done with this certificate. We’ll talk about it again soon to set common rules, to find fair rules: combining vaccination or a negative PCR test; we need to arrive at balanced solutions that allow everyone to have the opportunity to circulate”, explained the president.
For Mr Costa, it is “fundamental that by this summer everyone feels safe to travel and welcome visitors”. “There will most certainly be different means, a vaccination certificate, the PCR and, as the president said, this vaccination certificate should be homogeneous and approved as soon as possible so that in countries where vaccines are quickly put in place and the second doses injected, these certificates can be given to the recipients”, he said.
The subject could be discussed at the EU-27 leaders’ videoconference on 21 January.
See the letter from the six Member States: http://bit.ly/2Ki0YJ7 (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)