The
European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, in a press conference on
Friday said that the European Union (EU) has signed a deal to double the order supply
of the BioNTech/Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to 600 million doses. “We
have right now, access to 300 million doses of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine. With
the new agreement we could purchase a total of up to an additional 300 million
doses”, said Leyen, reported AFP.

The authorities in the 27-nation bloc have been continuously
criticised about the vaccine rollout to be very slow than begun from December
27 and had been compared with United States and former EU member Britain for
the same.

“We have already secured an amount of doses that we need to
vaccinate 380 million Europeans, and this is more than 80 percent of the European
population. Other vaccine authorisations were expected in the coming weeks and
months so Europe will have more than enough vaccine within a reliable
timeframe”, added Leyen.

According to a spokesperson, a video summit will held on January 21 in
which the leaders will talk over their coordination on their battle with
COVID-19.

Also read: Ensure oral polio vaccine for children on Jan 17, says Harsh Vardhan

The European Commission has sufficient vaccines for their entire
population of 450 million people along with additional vaccines for poorer neighbouring
countries with contracts of 2.3 billion vaccine doses. The additional doses
will be delivered from April this year.

She also answered regarding the reports that Germany had looked for its
own vaccine supply outside of the Commission and said that the collective
ordering scheme was legally binding.