EU Orders 300mn Doses of Pfizer’s Covid Vaccine, Nigeria to Wait for Access

The European Union has negotiated to buy up to 300 million doses of the breakthrough coronavirus vaccine developed by BioNTech and Pfizer, the Financial Times reported Wednesday, with deliveries expected to begin by the end of the year, after regulatory approval has been granted by the European Medicines Agency.

“Today’s finalised supply agreement with the European Commission represents the largest initial order of vaccine doses for Pfizer and BioNTech to date and a major step toward our shared goal of making a Covid-19 vaccine available to vulnerable populations,” Pfizer chief executive Albert Bourla said in a statement Wednesday.

This comes after initial trial results released by the companies on Monday showed the vaccine to be more than 90 percent effective, raising hopes that there is a way out of the devastating pandemic. The shot is in pole position to be first of several potential vaccines under development to receive regulatory approval with BioNTech executives expecting that within weeks.

Following the deal with EU, a region with 450 million people, Pfizer’s vaccine will be made in Germany and Belgium while member states that joined the agreement would also place orders separately, the company said.

Also Read: Pfizer Takes the Lead in Coronavirus Race with 90% Effective Vaccine

German health minister Jens Spahn has said he is hoping to secure 100 million doses of the two-dose vaccine for the country, which would be enough to vaccinate 50 million of Germany’s 83 million population.

The United Kingdom, which is exiting the EU, has been negotiating supply deals on its own, and already placed orders for 40 million doses of the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine.

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro was one of the leaders that called Pfizer on Monday, according to one industry executive, to discuss supply of the vaccine. Brazil had last week suspended use of a Chinese coronavirus vaccine. The Swiss government has also confirmed too that negotiations with BioNTech and Pfizer “are at an advanced stage”.

There are approximately 180 million doses remaining from the initial production run of 500 million doses with governments globally scrambling to get a share. Pfizer and BioNTech plan to manufacture up to 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021.

Heads of governments are also moving fast to secure advance orders of several vaccines under development, as they look to exit a pandemic that has killed more than 1.26 million people worldwide.

Also Read: Coronavirus Infections Now Over 50 Million, A Global Overview

Other candidate vaccines undergoing the final phases of testing include those made by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, and American pharmaceutical company Moderna with initial results expected before the end of the year.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has expressed optimism that the vaccine from Moderna will also report similarly impressive third phase trial results next week.

While countries from across the world move quickly to gain access to the vaccine, African leaders have so far only welcomed news of the effective shots without obvious efforts to secure doses of candidate vaccines from Pfizer or any other manufacturer.

Spokesman for South Africa’s Department of Health, Popo Maja, confirmed that the country had not concluded any vaccine deal despite leading Africa in number of infections – it has more than 742,000 cases of over 1.9 million across the continent.

Pfizer had in August assured Nigeria would remain “a priority country” in its plans for the supply of viable COVID-19 vaccines to Africa. But according to the President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa, Nigerians may have to wait a little longer to have access to the vaccine, since the federal government failed to make early financial commitments to the companies working on the various vaccines.