In her statement, von der Leyen comes with good news. Pfizer-BioNTech will deliver additional vaccines, 50 million doses, until July 1. For the Netherlands, this amounts to almost 2 million injections. This brings the total number of vaccines that Pfizer supplies in this period to 250 million.
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Von der Leyen emphasizes that Pfizer-BioNTech is a reliable partner. Delivery is as promised and even goes a step further if the European Union asks for it.
Without mentioning the company by name, that is of course a sneer to AstraZeneca. The European Union has been arguing with this pharmaceutical company for months, because time and time again too few vaccines are supplied.
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1,8 miljard doses
The European Union also wants to work with Pfizer-BioNTech for the medium term. That is why negotiations are underway on the delivery of no less than 1.8 billion doses in the period from 2021 to 2023.
Because, says von der Leyen: “We have to focus on technologies that have proven their value. MRNA vaccines have proven themselves.”
Pfizer-BioNTech is a vaccine that has been developed with the new, so-called mRNA technique. AstraZeneca is not, an existing technology is used there. Janssen is also not an mRNA vaccine, so things are not looking very promising for the European Union for this vaccine developed in Leiden.
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Von der Leyen is not directly talking about the rare, but serious side effect of the AstraZeneca vaccine, thrombosis. But that will certainly weigh up.
The Netherlands no longer pricks with AstraZeneca when people are younger than 60 and many other countries have the same kind of rule. Denmark has even decided this afternoon to stop using AstraZeneca completely and permanently.
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The European Union will thus start negotiating 1.8 billion vaccines for the coming years with the company that Ursula Von der Leyen consistently calls BioNTech-Pfizer instead of Pfizer-BioNTech, to emphasize that this vaccine was developed in Europe. .
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European vaccine made in Europe
And von der Leyen sees another advantage in the vaccine developed by the German BioNTech, which is produced in collaboration with the American pharmaceutical company Pfizer: “Made in the European Union.” Not only the production of the vaccine, but also the production of all essential components will take place in the European Union.
This also contrasts with the production of the AstraZeneca vaccine. After all, there has been a huge fight with Britain about that. The European Union found that the British had hijacked the AstraZeneca vaccines.
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Other contracts with other companies may follow, says Von der Leyen. But the course that has been set seems clear: Europe mainly wants to tackle the pandemic with a European vaccine, that of BioNTech-Pfizer.
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