Thursday afternoon, to back up her point, Secretary of State for the Budget Eva De Bleeker (Open VLD) posted on Twitter a table detailing the amounts vaccine per vaccine… before removing it.
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LSecretary of State for the Budget Eva De Bleeker (Open VLD) admitted Thursday evening in the House that she had been too transparent by posting, on Twitter, a table detailing the prices of the various vaccines against Covid-19 pre-ordered by Belgium .
During the budget debate which lasted more than 30 hours, long discussions took place on the means that the government has provided for the purchase of vaccines against the coronavirus. State Secretary Eva De Bleeker clarified that the money was well funded.
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A published price table
Thursday afternoon, to support her point, she posted on Twitter a table detailing the vaccine amounts per vaccine… before deleting it. It indicated the names of the suppliers, the number of doses as well as the prices.
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Recalled in the evening by the N-VA to justify herself, Ms. De Bleeker admitted to having been too transparent, considering however that “nothing is endangered” by this communication. “I was sleeping when I was called back after spending 26 to 27 hours of debate here. As the discussion continued, I wanted to decide once and for all, maybe a little too much. “
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Nothing at risk
The Secretary of State withdrew her tweet, in consultation with the government. “My attitude will not jeopardize anything. These vaccines will come, the money is planned. In this way, we had tried to clarify things so that there was no panic on the fact that there is money or not ”, she justified specifying not having the answer. on the displayed price differences. “This is not an official final table,” she added.
The opposition reacts
” It’s awesome ! Put everything on Twitter ”, encouraged Raoul Hedebouw (PTB, opposition). “For us, the real mistake is to have removed this message. After his Communist colleague, François De Smet (Défi), for his part, called for a broader reflection on the dependence of States on pharmaceutical companies.
Asked by Maxime Prévot (CDH) on the number of doses planned for the Curevac vaccine, the Minister of Health Frank Vandenbroucke (SP.A) specified that 2.9 million doses had been ordered, and not 5 as suggested the table published by Mme De Bleeker.
On the table briefly published on Twitter, the prices displayed per dose are 1.78 euros for the AstraZeneca vaccine, 8.50 euros for J&J (Johnson & Johnson), 7.56 euros for Sanofi / GSK, 12 euros for BioNTech / Pfizer, 10 euros for Curevac and 18 dollars a dose for the Moderna vaccine. According to this document, the Belgian State has budgeted 279,120,190 euros for this purpose.
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