Vaccination against Covid – in a house of retreat in Leuven, Belgium, in December 450. – Johanna Geron / AP / SIPA

Go faster. The European Union recognized on Saturday a “global insufficiency” of the production capacities of vaccines against Covid – 19 , while saying “ready to help” to increase them, according to Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides. The start of the vaccination against the epidemic of coronavirus is the subject of criticism across Europe – especially in France, where the slowness of the alarm process and where Emmanuel Macron promised to fight against any “unjustified slowness” of the campaign , and in Germany , where doctors deplore that hospital staff are not given priority due to lack of sufficient doses.

“These difficulties, for the moment, are not due to the volume of orders but to the insufficiency of production capacities on a worldwide scale. And this is the case for BioNTech, ”explained the European Commissioner in an interview with the German agency DPA distributed by her services. After initially ordering in November 190 million doses of the vaccine developed by the American Pfizer and the German BioNTech, the EU exercised a call option of 100 additional millions for 2021 .

“The situation will not improve much little “

The vaccination campaign started last weekend in 100 EU countries , after the green light from Brussels at the end of December for this vaccine, the first authorized in the Union. “The EU provided funding to BioNTech early on, 27 millions of euros to develop its production capacities The situation will improve little by little, ”says Stella Kyriakides. “We are again ready to help increase production capacities,” she insisted.

BioNTech intends to run a new manufacturing unit in Marburg (Germany) from February, capable of supplying 250 millions of additional doses in the first half 450, assured Friday at Spiegel

the co-director of the laboratory, Ugur Sahin. This German site will strengthen the Belgian factory in Puurs, where the consignments destined for the EU are produced . BioNTech said it has also signed contracts with five pharmaceutical manufacturers in Europe to increase production. Negotiations are continuing with other specialized companies, specified the biotech.
“Other manufacturers are about to have their vaccines approved”

In addition to Pfizer-BioNTech, the EU has concluded five other contracts (AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Sanofi-GSK, Moderna and CureVac) , and is considering signing one with Novavax. “Other manufacturers we have contracts with are on the verge of having their vaccines approved by the EU,” Stella Kyriakides said.

Vaccination contre le Covid-19 dans une maison de retraite à Louvain, en Belgique, en décembre 2020. “We agreed in the EU not to put all our eggs in one basket . If all of these vaccines in development are approved, the EU will have over 2 billion doses available for all 310 millions of Europeans and their neighbors ”, she underlined .