{"id":146051,"date":"2021-01-02T21:06:49","date_gmt":"2021-01-02T18:06:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/eu-ready-to-help-expand-vaccine-production\/"},"modified":"2021-01-02T21:06:49","modified_gmt":"2021-01-02T18:06:49","slug":"eu-ready-to-help-expand-vaccine-production","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/eu-ready-to-help-expand-vaccine-production\/","title":{"rendered":"#EU ready to help expand vaccine production"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#EU ready to help expand vaccine production<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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The European Union is ready to help drug companies expand coronavirus vaccine production to clear a “bottleneck” in distribution, its top health official said Saturday.\n <\/p>\n

Health commissioner Stella Kyriakides told German news<\/a> agency DPA that any delay in getting app<\/a>roved vaccines out was down to production capacity shortage, not EU planning.<\/p>\n

“The bottleneck at the moment is not the volume of orders but the worldwide shortage of production capacity,” she said, in comments distributed by her office.<\/p>\n

Kyriakides noted that Brussels had provided 100 million euros to German firm BioNTech, which developed a vaccine with US giant Pfizer, to help build production capacity.<\/p>\n

And she said that the bloc was ready to do more, for Pfizer-BioNTech and other companies with candidate vaccines, as the vaccination campaign gets into gear.<\/p>\n

“The situation will improve step by step,” she promised, one week after vaccinations began at widely varying paces among EU member states. <\/p>\n

“We have been negotiating for additional vaccine doses from BioNTech for a long time and are again ready to help expand production capacities. <\/p>\n

“Other manufacturers with whom we have contracts are on the verge of having their vaccines approved by the EU.”<\/p>\n

The European Medicines Agency, which advises the European Commission, approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on December 21.<\/p>\n

But it is not expected to rule on a potential alternative from US company Moderna until January 6.<\/p>\n

And it is awaiting more data on a candidate from AstraZeneca and Oxford University, which has already been approved in the UK.<\/p>\n

But Kyriakides insisted that Europe is not falling behind in its joint procurement programme, backed by the 27 member states.<\/p>\n

“If all vaccine candidates are approved, Europe will have more than two billion doses of vaccine available for all 450 million Europeans and their neighbours,” she said. <\/p>\n

“And that’s what it’s all about: Europe can get out of this crisis fastest together.”\n <\/p>\n\n

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Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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\n \u00a9 2021 AFP<\/p>\n

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Citation<\/strong>:
\n EU ready to help expand vaccine production (2021, January 2)
\n retrieved 2 January 2021
\n from https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/news\/2021-01-eu-ready-vaccine-production.html<\/p>\n

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