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When it comes to vaccinating people, the EU is behind the United Kingdom, the United States and Israel – and an increasing number of critics blame the European Commission.
Over the weekend, Markus Söder, leader of Germany’s Christian Social Union, and CEO of BioNTech, Uğur Şahin, criticized the Commission for not getting enough of the BioNTech / Pfizer vaccine, the first to be approved by European regulators.
The Commission responded on Monday, saying it had secured more than 2 billion doses of vaccines from seven producers, with the participation of member states throughout the process.
“I don’t think the issue is really the number of vaccines, it is the fact that we are at the beginning of an implementation,” said the Commission’s main spokesman, Eric Mamer. “We are all judging this as if the campaign is over; in fact, the campaign is just beginning ”.
It was certainly a slow start. EU countries have vaccinated hundreds of thousands of people collectively, but the numbers vary dramatically between countries.
Even Germany, which has vaccinated 265,000 people – more than any other EU country – since January 4, is still a long way from the 1.3 million doses available.
Meanwhile, the UK has jabbed about a million people and the US more than 4 million. Both countries had an advantage of weeks and are facing their own problems (the US has 13.2 million doses available, for example), but the slow launch of the EU is due to delays in vaccine production, a more rapid approval process. substantive, but bureaucratic, and lack of planning in many EU countries.
Why didn’t the Commission buy enough BioNTech / Pfizer jabs to inoculate everyone in the EU?
In June, when the Commission started buying vaccines, nobody was sure which one would be successful, let alone which one would be available first.
BioNTech / Pfizer, as well as Moderna, Oxford / AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, were among the fastest to initiate large-scale human testing and boasted ambitious deadlines. But each of these vaccines had different obstacles to overcome, and no one expected any of them to be more than 90 percent effective – certainly not those based on mRNA technology, which had never been approved by regulators before.
Therefore, the Commission has diversified its vaccine portfolio, guaranteeing more than 2 billion doses of vaccines from six producers. It is close to an agreement to purchase an additional 200 million doses of the Novavax jab.
Shouldn’t the EU have agreed to buy more?
Since BioNTech / Pfizer was the first to come out with an injection, everyone wants as much of the vaccine as they can, but that will certainly be a short-term problem.
Compared to other vaccines, the BioNTech / Pfizer vaccine is difficult to distribute because it needs to be stored on dry ice at -70 degrees C (can be kept in normal refrigerators for just five days) and is expensive, around € 12 per shot. compared to Oxford / AstraZeneca, which is less than € 2 per serving, according to a published price list.
Even so, the Commission guaranteed 200 million doses of the German-American vaccine with the option to buy another 100 million (the largest deal for BioNTech / Pfizer vaccines at the time).
For comparison, the US bought 100 million doses of the vaccine with the option to buy another 500 million in July. After criticism, the US government bought another 100 million on December 23 – even less than the initial EU purchase.
But even if the EU had bought more vaccines, it probably wouldn’t have made a difference at this point. The issue now has mainly to do with manufacturing bottlenecks and countries unprepared to launch jabs quickly.
Should countries just buy and approve vaccines?
The argument for coming together is that EU countries would guarantee better business by negotiating as a bloc.
They learned from previous experience: during the 2009 swine flu pandemic, pharmaceutical companies challenged each other’s EU countries to charge more money for vaccines, with some states ending up with too many doses and selling them to neighbors.
This time, EU countries agreed to let the Commission handle the negotiations. EU countries are still part of the process, however, as seven countries participate in the negotiations and all EU countries countries approve deals before they are signed.
Technically, the EU could have bought 1 billion doses of each vaccine, but the money was a constraint. It is unclear to what extent, as almost all information in EU vaccine contracts is secret. We know that the Commission used around EUR 2.1 billion as advances for vaccines and asked the EU countries for an additional EUR 750 million in the autumn. Each EU country pays per dose when submitting vaccine orders. Still, they have accumulated one of the largest vaccine portfolios in the world.
Some countries have decided to buy other vaccines or more injections in addition to the EU business. In the fall, Germany bought an additional 30 million doses of the BioNTech / Pfizer and CureVac vaccines, although this goes against the EU’s strategy.
When questioned by POLITICO, Health Minister Jens Spahn said Germany wanted to buy more, but “there was really no greater need for member states at this stage.”
As soon as these additional purchases become public, Denmark said it would do the same and bought 2.6 million additional doses.
Was Germany prevented by the Commission?
Germany helped to force the Commission’s decision in June by partnering with France, Italy and the Netherlands to sign an agreement for up to 400 million Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccines for the entire EU, so that the US could not snatch them all.
Other countries, notably Belgium, criticized the initiative and the Commission intervened to negotiate for the bloc. The four countries ended up transferring the Oxford / AstraZeneca agreement to the Commission.
This is now being reported in the German media as the start of the “vaccine disaster”. Bild reported that Spahn apologized for the position of the four-nation alliance in a “humiliating tone”, so that Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and German Chancellor Angela Merkel could make the “big gesture” of leaving the EU takes over.
Steffen Siebert, head of the German government’s press office, upheld the decision on Monday, saying he was convinced it was “the right way”.
“For a country in the center of Europe … dependent on the free flow of goods, with an interest in a functioning Schengen area, ‘each one for himself’ cannot be the way,” he said.
So why is the EU taking so long to vaccinate people?
As some claim, the EU signed vaccine deals too late? Most of the deals were completed in early August – the Commission did not get approval from EU countries until months later.
It is true that the United Kingdom and the United States were able to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of people before European regulators approved the first vaccine against coronavirus. There are a few reasons for this, mainly that the European Medicines Agency has recommended a conditional marketing authorization, which comes with more restrictions for drug manufacturers than British emergency authorization procedures. As a result, if there are any unforeseen problems with vaccines, the UK government will be held responsible; while in the EU, drug manufacturers would be in danger.
It also takes longer because it requires the collaboration of all EU countries. Countries have largely maintained their support for this process throughout December, but seeing images of British and Americans being vaccinated, countries like Hungary, Poland, Germany and Italy have pushed the EU to go faster.
The EMA has put forward the recommendation dates and the Commission has simplified its authorization process from days to hours, but it seems likely that the EU process will continue to take longer, as other countries issue emergency authorizations.
EMA’s next decision will be on Moderna’s vaccine this week, although the American company has limited production capacity in the EU.
EMA is also conducting ongoing reviews of the Oxford / AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines (although the former has not formally submitted an application for conditional marketing authorization, which can cause delays).
Shouldn’t a vaccine be valid after receiving the green light?
Since the BioNTech / Pfizer vaccine had EU approval, companies needed to disclose it and countries needed to use it. This is where we see problems now.
BioNTech / Pfizer was unable to supply the 12.5 million vaccines it promised the EU by the end of 2020, largely due to supply chain problems. BioNTech CEO Şahin told Der Spiegel that more vaccines need to be approved while the company increases manufacturing capacity.
“It doesn’t look good – a hole is showing up because there is a lack of other approved vaccines and we have to fill the gap with our own vaccine,” he said.
When it comes to using jabs, most countries started on December 27 in a show of EU solidarity (Germany, Hungary and Slovakia stepped up and started the day before). Other countries were simply not prepared.
The Netherlands will not start vaccinating until this week, with Health Minister Hugo De Jonge saying that this is because they thought Oxford / AstraZeneca would be the first approved vaccine. “Perhaps that could and should have been done differently,” he wrote in a letter to parliament on Monday.
Many others were incredibly slow, especially France, which had vaccinated only 138 people on December 30.
Hans von der Burchard, Sarah Wheaton and Merlin Sugue contributed to the report.
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