EU to seal world’s biggest ever vaccine deal with Pfizer
The EU is on the brink of signing the biggest single deal yet for Covid-19 vaccines with Pfizer in the coming days.
Under the deal, the bloc will buy up 1.8bn doses of the Pfizer-Biontech’s vaccine, adding to the 600m shots it has already contracted from the firms.
European Commission president Ursula van der Leyen said that the doses would be delivered over the next two years.
The order is enough to vaccinate the EU’s 450m population for the same period.
It is the latest attempt by the bloc’s executive arm to shore up vaccine supplies after a slow start to its inoculation programme.
The EU has already reportedly said it will not renew its contract with fellow vaccine suppliers Astrazeneca or Johnson & Johnson.
Thus far, the number of people to have received a single dose of a Covid-19 vaccine in EU states is lagging far behind the figure in the UK and the US.
In recent days, however, there have been signs that the bloc is beginning to vaccinate people faster.
“I’m confident we will have enough doses to vaccinate 70 per cent of all EU adults already in July,” von der Leyen said, at a factory producing the Pfizer/BionTech vaccine.