European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has announced the purchase of an additional 100 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, the only one at the moment approved for mass delivery within the European Union. The stipulated contract to november between the two companies and the Commission – which is in charge of booking vaccine doses on behalf of the 27 states of the Union – already provided for an option to purchase 100 million doses in addition to the 200 million already agreed. At the moment it is not clear when the additional doses will actually be delivered: Italy should receive the 26.9 million doses agreed with the EU by September 2021.
– Read also: The things we still don’t know about vaccination in Italy
We decided to take an additional 100 million doses of the #BioNTech /@Pfizer vaccine, which is already being used to vaccinate people across the EU.
We will therefore have 300 million doses of this vaccine, which was assessed as safe and effective.
More vaccines will follow!
– Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) December 29, 2020
We do not know why the Commission has decided to activate the option to purchase 100 million additional doses: some have linked it to the news, arrived just today, that unless there are surprises it will not be approved by January the vaccine produced by the British Swedish company Astrazeneca in collaboration with the University of Oxford, on which the European Union was betting heavily having ordered about 300 million doses (with an option to obtain 400).
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