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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“More vaccines will follow!” von der Leyen said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The bloc also signed contracts with Moderna, AstraZeneca, CureVac, Johnson&Johnson, and Sanofi-GlaxoSmithKline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 […]<\/p>\n
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