EU ordered 'more than enough' doses to vaccinate entire EU population: Von der Leyen

World

Published: 2021-01-08 12:57

Last Updated: 2024-03-27 23:29


EU ordered 'more than enough' doses to vaccinate entire EU population: Von der Leyen
EU ordered 'more than enough' doses to vaccinate entire EU population: Von der Leyen

The President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said Friday that the number of vaccine doses ordered by the EU is "More than enough to vaccinate the whole European population."

Wednesday, the European Union Medicines Regulatory Authority approved Moderna's coronavirus vaccine, making it the second vaccine to get approved for use across the EU after the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine which was approved on Dec.21.

Von der Leyen added "We have already secured an amount of doses that we need to vaccinate 380 million Europeans, and this is more than 80 percent of the European population."

However, she said the EU countries cannot negotiate separate vaccine deals with pharmaceutical companies in parallel to the efforts of the EU as a whole.

She said “The only framework we are negotiating in is as 27. We do this together and no member state on this legal binding basis is allowed to negotiate in parallel or to have a contract in parallel.”

“The whole portfolio covers 2.3 billion doses of vaccines so this is more than enough to vaccinate the whole European population.”