A vial of Moderna's vaccine.
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SOPA Images / SIPA
Following a first contract for 160 million doses, the European Union has purchased 300 million additional doses of the Moderna vaccine against Covid-19, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced on Wednesday .
The EU has purchased 150 million doses for delivery in the 3rd and 4th quarters of 2021, with an option of 150 million additional doses for delivery in 2022, the company said in a statement.
Seven million Europeans already vaccinated
Brussels has been strongly criticized for delays in vaccine production which slowed down vaccination campaigns in member states.
With this new order, the EU should have 310 million doses of the Moderna vaccine this year, which on January 8 was the second to be approved by the European regulator, after that of the German-American duo BioNTech / Pfizer.
Both use messenger RNA technology.
A total of 33 million doses of BioNTech-Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines have been delivered to member states;
and 22 million people in the EU have received at least one dose - of which seven million have received the two doses needed to be fully immunized - Ursula von der Leyen told a press conference.
The European Commission is responsible for negotiating vaccine pre-orders on behalf of the Twenty-Seven, and it is then up to states to finalize purchases directly from laboratories.
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