European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said the EU had extended its contract with Pfizer/BioNTech with a view to purchasing an extra 300 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine.
This would double the number of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine doses purchased by the Commission to 600 million. Ms von der Leyen said delivery of the extra doses would start in the second quarter of this year.
In a statement, the commission said: "European Commission today proposed to the EU Member States to purchase an additional 200 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine produced by BioNTech and Pfizer, with the option to acquire another 100 million doses. "This would enable the EU to purchase up to 600 million doses of this vaccine, which is already