Germany may be one of the first countries in Europe to start immunizing people against covid-19, as part of a plan launched by the government and a German company that is testing a vaccine, The Wall Street Journal.
The plan is for doses of the vaccine, now in storage in Germany, to be sent to more than 60 regional vaccination centers within hours of its approval.
German Health Minister Jens Spahn and Federal Minister for Education and Research, Anja Karliczek, said at a press conference in Berlin on Tuesday that they expected a vaccine next year. They also announced that three German companies are being funded in this regard.
The two ministers noted that “risky shortcuts” would not be taken and that the vaccine would not be available to the majority of the population until mid-next year. “We want a safe and effective vaccine, not necessarily the first. Safety has absolute priority on this point ”, they stressed.
The two ministers also announced that the special € 750 million German research fund for a vaccine against the new coronavirus would be invested mainly in three companies: BioNTech, CureVac, and IDT Biologika.
BioNTech is expected to receive 375 million euros, while CureVac is expected to receive 252 million euros. Negotiations with IDT Biologika, in Dessau, in eastern Germany, are still ongoing.
“The grant is an important contribution to accelerating the development and expansion of vaccination production capacities,” said BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin in a statement.
Both BioNTech and CureVac are working on a vaccine called mRNA – a molecule that provides human cells with the information needed to produce proteins to fight infection. The mRNA vaccine is thought to be faster to develop and produce than others.
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