The European Commission announced this Tuesday that it had reached an agreement with the Moderna pharmaceutical company to adapt the schedule for the delivery of new doses of the anticovid-19 vaccine, with the aim of “covering the needs” of the European Union (EU) in the autumn. and winter
In a statement, the Community Executive reports that it has reached an agreement with Moderna to “better respond to the needs of the Member States in terms of vaccines against Covid-19 in the late summer and winter period.”
The agreement will ensure that national authorities have access to vaccines, including variant-adapted vaccines, if licensed, at the time they need them for their own vaccination campaigns and to support their global partners.”
Specifically, the agreement reached now aims to adapt contractual delivery times initially agreed with the Moderna pharmaceutical company, thus stipulating that the doses initially planned for the summer will be delivered in September and during the fall and winter.
According to Brussels, the change was made because the upcoming cold season will be a “time when Member States are most likely to need additional vaccine stocks for national campaigns and to meet their international solidarity commitments.”
The agreement also guarantees that if one or more adapted vaccines [às novas variantes] receive a marketing authorisation, Member States may choose to receive these adapted vaccines under the current contract.
The agreement also guarantees 15 million candidate vaccines for booster doses of Moderna against the Ómicron variant, prior authorization of respective commercialization within the terms that allow the use of these doses in vaccination campaigns.
Since 2020, the EU has been investing heavily in the global production of various Covid-19 vaccines, and is now focusing on doses tailored to new variants of SARS-CoV-2.
Community space remains one of the world’s leading exporters.
At the end of July 2022, the EU exported more than 2.4 billion doses of vaccines to 168 countries and, in addition, the Member States have shared more than 478 million doses, of which nearly 406 million have already been delivered to the beneficiary countries (around 82% through the COVAX mechanism).
Source: Observadora
