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Brussels (AFP) – European Union member countries will receive an additional 20 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in the first three months of 2022 to deal with the omicron variant, the European Commission said this Sunday.
Europe is facing a new wave of covid-19 cases due to the omicron variant, detected in early November in South Africa and highly contagious.
Many countries are stepping up vaccination campaigns and re-imposing travel restrictions to try to stem the exponential rise in infections.
Member States will receive an additional 5 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in January, 5 million in February and 10 million in March, the Commission said in a statement.
“These doses are in addition to the 195 million doses already scheduled from Pfizer-BioNTech, bringing the total number of deliveries in the first quarter to 215 million,” added the executive body of the European Union.
Full vaccination and booster doses are “now more urgent than ever” given the “projected rapid increase in infections due to the omicron variant,” the Commission said.
In total, the EU should receive 650 million doses of vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech in 2022.
The variant was detected in about 80 countries and is advancing rapidly in Europe, where it could become dominant by mid-January, according to the European Commission.
© 2021 AFP
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