The European Commissioner for Health, Stella Kyriakides, confirmed, on Monday 19 April, that the Commission will activate the option to purchase an additional 100 million doses as part of its contract with Pfizer/BioNTech.
“This brings the total number of doses to be delivered to the EU to 600 million” in 2021, the two companies said in a joint statement, just one week after signing a new contract with the Commission for an additional 50 million doses (see EUROPE 12698/1).
“To date, we have met all of our supply commitments to the European Commission”, Pfizer and BioNTech insisted in their statement, reiterating that they expected to deliver a total of 250 million doses to the European Union in the second quarter.
Distribution. The 100 million new doses announced on Monday will be divided among Member States in proportion to their population - which should avoid reigniting the tensions that arose in March following the announcement of the early delivery of 10 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine (see EUROPE 12690/1).
The 10 million doses are expected to be delivered this quarter. And they will be under the purchase option of an additional 100 million, a Commission spokesperson confirmed to EUROPE. The remaining 90 million will arrive in subsequent quarters. (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)