Austria, Germany, Denmark, Finland, and Bulgaria will buy a total of 1.25 million doses of Covid emergency vaccine from Austro-French manufacturer Valneva this year. This was confirmed by signing the amendment to the advance purchase agreement with the European Commission yesterday. The company expects the first vaccine doses to be delivered to participating EU member states in the coming weeks.
The massive cut in the contract had already been announced on July 20. Now the opt-out period for member states has expired, the release said. Under the amendment, member states will purchase 1.25 million doses of Valneva’s inactivated vaccine in 2022, with the option to repurchase the same amount later for delivery in 2022.
Changes due to low demand
The original agreement was to supply 60 million doses, of which about 27 million were scheduled for this year. However, delays in the approval process and lower vaccine demand caused by an oversupply of vaccines and a slowdown in vaccination prompted EU countries to change the original contract.
The vaccine, called VLA2001, had only been approved in the EU on June 24. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) had previously recommended the vaccine as a primary vaccine for people aged 18 to 50. It is the sixth Covid-19 vaccine approved in the European Union and the first inactivated vaccine.
- source: orf.at/picture: pixabay.com
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