Europe: AstraZeneca Agrees to Supply EU Countries with 400 Million Doses of Covid-19 Vaccine

EARLIER today, British drugmaker AstraZeneca signed a contract to supply the EU region with its potential vaccine against Covid-19.

The pharma firm signed a deal which will see up to 400 million doses of the vaccine being made available to EU member countries.

The vaccine, which is being developed by the University of Oxford will be manufactured by AstraZeneca, who are already looking at ways of scaling-up the operation.

The vaccine is to be supplied on a not-for-profit basis during the pandemic and deliveries will start by the end of the year.

The deal is the first for Europe’s Inclusive Vaccines Alliances (IVA), which was formed by France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands to secure vaccine doses for members of the EU.

“This will ensure that hundreds of millions of people in Europe will have access to this vaccine, of course if it works and we will know that by the end of summer,” the AstraZeneca’s chief executive, Pascal Soriot told journalists today. He said he has “good hope” that it will work, based on initial data.

Spain will be one of the recipients of the vaccine although it is not yet known how many doses will be made available to the nation.