Brussels to sign pre-purchase of 405 million doses of CureVac vaccine on Tuesday

BrusselsBrussels will sign a fifth contract on Tuesday to ensure that the European Union is left without doses of the coronavirus vaccine. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has announced that she will sign on Tuesday the advance purchase of up to 405 million doses of the vaccine from German pharmaceutical CureVac. This is in addition to the four contracts she has already signed with Pfizer-BionTech, Johnson&Johnson, AstraZeneca and Sanofi. Brussels has signed a total of 1,805 million doses with various pharmaceutical companies so as not to be left out of the global race for acquiring the vaccine.

"We continue to work for an effective and safe vaccine to end the pandemic," Von der Leyen said in a video statement. In these contracts, Brussels ensures that if the vaccine is proven effective, it will be distributed to all member states to ensure that it reaches everyone equally. For the time being, however, the Commission refuses to make the contracts public on the grounds of confidentiality.

"We do not know right now which vaccine will be safe and effective. The MES will only authorise them after a solid analysis and that is why we need a broad catalogue of vaccines based on different strategies," the Commission President clarified.

A sixth contract with Moderna

In addition, the president of the European Commission recalled that she is in talks with Moderna, the American pharmaceutical company which announced on Monday that its vaccine is 95% effective. Also this Monday, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has started to study the results of the laboratory tests of Moderna's vaccine. Von der Leyen has expressed the hope that a similar contract with this company will be concluded "soon". The EMA started its analysis of the results of the Astra-Zeneca and Pfizer-BioNtech vaccines several weeks ago.