(NETTAVISEN): On Monday, it became known that Pfizer, the world’s largest pharmaceutical group, believed that their historic mRNA vaccine against the coronavirus was both safe and effective.
Shortly afterwards, the EU signed an agreement to buy 200 million doses of the vaccine – with the possibility of buying another 100 million later.
Too few doses to cover risk groups
It has not been decided how many of these vaccines Norway will receive, but there are many indications that Norway will receive one percent of all vaccines the EU receives. Then Norway in the first phase will have access to 2 million doses, and maybe one million later.
This may sound like a lot, but the problem is that Pfizer’s vaccine depends on two doses per person to work.
The Ministry of Health and Care Services confirms to Nettavisen that the EU’s procurement agreement applies to the number of doses, not the number of possible vaccinated.
Thus, 2 million doses are only enough for one million people.
In comparison, it is estimated that 1.6 million people are in the risk group in Norway.
The EU is not alone in wanting to buy doses
Pfizer aims to produce 50 million doses by New Year, and up to 1.3 billion doses by the end of next year. That is enough for about 650 million people.
In comparison, there are almost 750 million people living in Europe, and around 330 million in the United States.
In addition to the EU’s purchase agreement for 200 + 100 million doses, the USA already entered into an agreement this summer for 100 + 600 million doses of the vaccine. The UK has an existing deal of 30 million doses, while Canada has bought an unknown number of millions.
Japan, for its part, has an agreement to buy 130 million doses, guaranteed delivered in the first half of 2021.
According to Global Justice Now is over 80 percent of the production volume already sold.
Depending on several vaccines
In practice, this means that Pfizer’s vaccine alone will not be sufficient to solve the corona situation in Europe during 2021, but it will also be dependent on several of the vaccines that are under development being approved.
The EU has concluded procurement agreements or letters of intent with the vaccines from AztraZeneca / Oxford, Moderna, Sanofi-GSK, Johnson & Johnson and Curevac – in addition to Pfizer / BioNTech.
More vaccines will probably be important anyway. It is not yet known whether Pfizer’s vaccine will work for all age groups and people with other underlying diseases. The National Institute of Public Health has repeatedly written that they reckon that there will be a need for several different vaccines, which will have different properties, which can be targeted at different groups.
– It is uncertain when vaccines are approved, what properties they have, what use they get, when they are delivered to Norway, and in what quantities they are delivered, FHI writes in its latest risk report.
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