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19th Apr 2021

Ireland to receive 1 million extra Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine doses in 2021

Clara Kelly

The company said that all of the vaccines will be delivered this year.

Pfizer-BioNTech is set to deliver an extra 100 million doses of its Covid-19 vaccine to the European Union this year following a decision by the EU to exercise an option to purchase additional doses made in February.

Under the EU vaccination scheme, Ireland would be entitled to over one million of these vaccines.

The EU has already signed two contracts with Pfizer and BioNTech for 600 million doses to be delivered this year.

Pfizer and BioNTech agreed to accelerate Covid-19 vaccine deliveries to the EU last week by 25%, bringing forward the shipment of 50 million doses that had originally been scheduled for the fourth quarter.

The head of the EU Commission Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday that the deliveries will likely start this month and will take total supplies to the EU from Pfizer to more than 250 million doses in the second quarter of this year.

“We have reached an agreement with Pfizer-BioNTech to once again speed up the delivery of vaccine, 50 million additional doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines will be delivered beginning in April,” she said.

“Those vaccines were initially seen for delivery in the fourth quarter of 2021, now they will be delivered in the second quarter of 2021, and that is right now, this will bring the total doses of Pfizer-BioNTech to 250 million doses in the second quarter.”

She also confirmed the Commission was in talks with the two companies for a new contract for 1.8 billion doses to be delivered in both 2022 and 2023.

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