Coronavirus: EU to buy an additional 150 million Moderna vaccines

H European Commission approved the amendment of the second contract with the pharmaceutical company Modern to activate, on behalf of all EU Member States, an additional 150 million doses in 2022. The revised contract provides for the possibility of purchasing vaccines adapted to the virus variants, as well as vaccines for pediatric use and booster vaccines.

Thanks to the established cooperation with the company, the contract also guarantees the timely delivery from the third quarter of 2021 to the end of 2022 and the possibility of adapting it to the needs of each Member State according to their epidemiological situation. Member States have the potential to resell or dispense doses to countries in need outside the EU or through the COVAX facility, contributing to global and equitable access to vaccines worldwide.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said: “We are providing an additional 150 million doses of vaccine. And we provide a contract for the flexibility we need to get a new generation of custom COVID-19 vaccines that are effective against variants. “This will allow us to protect citizens from new strains of the virus.”

EU Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Stella Kyriakidou noted that “as agreed with all Health Ministers, we are securing a diversified portfolio of future vaccines, with another mRNA vaccine that has already proven its worth”.

“We must be ready for any scenario and think of a step forward,” the health commissioner added.

The contract with Moderna is based on a wide portfolio of vaccines that will ensure that Europe has access to up to 4.4 billion doses, as all vaccines have been shown to be safe and effective.

Coronavirus: EU to extend vaccine export control mechanism until end of September

European Union governments have backed a plan to extend the monitoring mechanism, which has the potential to limit COVID-19 vaccine exports from the bloc, a commission spokesman said today.

The decision paves the way for the Commission to formally extend the emergency mechanism in the coming days until the end of September, an EU official said. Otherwise, the mechanism is expected to expire at the end of June.

The European Commission set up the mechanism in late January in an effort to curb vaccine exports from pharmaceutical companies that are deemed to be failing to meet their EU supply commitments.

The mechanism has allowed the export of hundreds of millions of vaccines produced in the EU to dozens of countries around the world.

It has been used to prevent only one shipment of 250,000 doses AstraZeneca in March, following the reduction of the Anglo-Swedish company’s supplies to the EU.

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