The countries of the European Union (EU) should vaccinate up to 80 percent of medical personnel and citizens over 80 years old by March and up to 70 percent of the adult population by this summer. Such goals are set in the EU vaccination strategy and measures to combat the pandemic published by the European Commission (EC), reports TASS.
The EC has also advised states to introduce vaccination certificates, but it does not specify exactly how to use them. “A common approach should be agreed by the end of January to allow member countries to quickly start using these documents in health systems and for other purposes,” the text says. The EC also promised to make efforts to expand the capacity of vaccine production within the EU.
Earlier in January, it was reported that pharmaceutical company Pfizer, one of the manufacturers of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus vaccine, would cut its supply of the drug to European countries while it modernizes production. It explains that the firm is expanding its production capacity: it plans to produce 2 billion instead of the 1.3 billion doses a year that its factories are capable of now. According to preliminary forecasts, the situation will change in February.
The EC has signed contracts with six Western companies to pre-order 2.3 billion doses of vaccines. Of these, only two vaccines have already been created and certified in the EU from the American companies Pfizer and Moderna, which pledged to supply the EU countries with 460 million doses of vaccine by September 2021, and later – another 300 million.
