ANKARA, TURKEY
The European Union Tuesday announced that it will buy an additional 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine jointly developed by US drug maker Pfizer and German firm BioNTech, bringing the total to 300 million doses after the first shipment last week.
“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,” European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen said on Twitter.
She added that the EU will therefore have 300 million doses of the vaccine which was approved by the European Medicine Agency (EMA) on Dec. 22.
“More vaccines will follow!” von der Leyen said.
The EU has made agreements with six companies that have so far conducted “promising” vaccine studies and is set to purchase about 2 billion vaccine doses, including 300 million from Pfizer and BioNTech.
The bloc also signed contracts with Moderna, AstraZeneca, CureVac, Johnson&Johnson, and Sanofi-GlaxoSmithKline.
The EMA — an EU agency that authorizes the use of medicines across member states — is expected to conclude its review of the Moderna vaccine by Jan. 6.
