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By Tiziana Di Giovannandrea

24 February 2021 Producing vaccines on an industrial scale is not easy but the pharmaceutical company Pzifer has announced that it will be able to produce 2 billion more doses of the anti Covid vaccine.

In practice, 50% more.

BioNTech has received the production license.



"To respond to the increased demand for vaccine doses, we plan to produce 2 billion doses in 2021, over 50% of the expected production of 1.3 billion doses. The interventions planned to increase our production capacities are well underway. "the pharmaceutical company told Ansa.



Pfizer explained: "We are making progress on key initiatives: modification of production processes at the plant in Puurs, (production site in Belgium, ed) successfully completed; the BioNTech production site has received the production license and we will start production for EMA validation in February, according to previously announced plans. " 



Double European Council on 25 and 26 February (by videoconference)

Meanwhile, a double European Council is scheduled for 25 and 26 February to deal with the

production of vaccines

and the

fight

against variants

.

The heads of state and government will meet by videoconference starting at 3 pm on February 25, to talk first of all about the epidemiological situation and the supply of vaccines against Covid-19, because it is not easy on an industrial scale.

On Friday morning, February 26, on the other hand, the heads of state and government will meet, again by videoconference, together with NATO secretary general

Jens Stoltenberg

to talk about defense and the southern neighborhood.



Tomorrow will be the debut, as premier, of Prime Minister

Mario Draghi

in a meeting of the European Council.

At the center of the work tomorrow, a senior EU official explained, will be various issues, starting with vaccinations, which in Europe continue to go at a snail's pace compared to other countries, also due to supply problems (not only that, there are also inefficiencies in vaccination plans).

On this issue five heads of state and government, including the Spanish

Pedro Sanchez

and the Polish

Mateusz Morawiecki

, sent a letter to

Charles Michel

 (President of the European Council) stressing that Europe "cannot afford" to lose battle of the production of anti Covid vaccines on its territory, which is still the Achilles heel of the EU vaccine strategy.

Europe must become self-sufficient in this area as soon as possible, underline the five leaders.

Not only to vaccinate Europeans, but also to provide vaccines to partner countries, which cannot be abandoned, as they are now, to the 'vaccination diplomacy' of Russia and China.

Serbia, a candidate country for EU membership, has already overtaken several, if not all, European countries by vaccinating the population using Russian, Chinese and even Pfizer-BioNTech serums.



We will also talk about the

restrictions on freedom of movement

adopted by the Member States

to contain the spread

of

the

epidemic

.