(Fighting New Coronary Pneumonia) The European Union Announces Investment of Over 200 Million Euros to Deal with New Coronary Variant
China News Agency, Brussels, February 17 (Reporter De Yongjian) As the new crown variant strain continues to spread, the European Union announced on the 17th that it will invest more than 200 million euros to increase the identification and research of the new crown variant strain. The increase was also announced on the same day. Purchase 300 million doses of Modena's new crown vaccine.
The announcement issued by the European Commission on the same day showed that in order to deal with the risk of the new coronavirus variant strain, the EU will invest a total of 225 million euros, of which 75 million euros will be used to assist member states to improve their gene sequencing capabilities, and the new coronavirus will be tested positive for genome sequencing. The proportion of samples has increased from the current 1% to 5%, so as to identify the new coronavirus variant strains in time and monitor their spread and pathogenicity in the population.
The remaining 150 million euros will be used to support research on COVID-19 variant strains and data exchange. The European Union will convene 16 member states and 5 countries including Switzerland and Israel to create a clinical trial network platform. Participating countries can exchange data on the platform and gradually exchange data. Children and young people are included in the clinical trial population.
The announcement quoted European Commission President von der Lein as saying that the current new crown mutant strains are constantly emerging, and the EU must make adjustments as soon as possible to get ahead of the virus; the package plan announced on the 17th is intended to gather the scientific community, industry and government departments. Strength, mobilize all existing resources to fight the epidemic.
On the 17th, the European Commission also announced that on the basis of the 160 million doses of vaccines ordered in November last year, the EU and Modena reached a second agreement, deciding to purchase an additional 300 million doses of Modena's new crown vaccine. So far, the EU's new crown vaccines have been ordered. The amount increased to 2.6 billion doses.
The European Union did not disclose when Modena will deliver the vaccines.
On January 6 this year, the European Union approved the use of Modena's new crown vaccine and allowed this vaccine to be placed on the EU market. However, at the end of January, Modena informed that due to the adjustment of production capacity of its partners in Switzerland, it could not be released to the United States in the "short term". Deliver sufficient vaccines to other regions.
Subsequently, Italy, France, Switzerland, Canada and other countries confirmed that the Modena new crown vaccine received in February will be reduced by one to two percent compared to the original plan.
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