BRUSSELS, Dec 20 (NNN-Xinhua) — The member states of the European Union (EU) will receive an additional 20 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in the first three months of next year to hasten the pace against the fast-spreading Omicron variant, the European Commission said.
“The Commission has today agreed with BioNTech-Pfizer to accelerate the delivery of its mRNA vaccine to Member States, starting in a few weeks,” it said in an announcement. Five million doses will be delivered in January, another five million in February and an extra ten million doses in March.
These doses come on top of the already scheduled 195 million doses from BioNTech-Pfizer, bringing the total number of deliveries in Q1 to 215 million.
The announcement came after the European Commission announced on Thursday that Moderna had agreed to accelerate the delivery of its mRNA vaccine to EU countries.
“In view of the deteriorating epidemiological situation in the European Union over the past months, full vaccination and the roll-out of boosters remains one of the EU’s top health priorities,” said the executive arm of the EU.
Being the world’s COVID-19 epicenter for a second time, Europe is bracing for a new wave of the pandemic.
On Dec. 16, 529 new Omicron cases were reported in the European Union and European Economic Area (EU/EEA), contributing to an overall total of 3,158 cases caused by the variant, said the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
BLED, Slovenia: The Slovenian Health Ministry launched a national campaign on Sunday to boost the COVID-19 vaccination rate to cope with the Omicron variant.
Health Minister Janez Poklukar kicked off the campaign in the northwestern city of Bled, where he got his booster shot.
The campaign was scheduled from Dec. 19 to 23 in 62 vaccination centers across the country.
Poklukar urged all residents to get vaccinated, labeling this as the only way to return to normal.
To date, six Omicron infections have been confirmed by genome sequencing in Slovenia, and another 14 by PCR test. In addition, 92 people were quarantined in connection with Omicron, according to the Slovenian Press Agency (STA).
Slovenia, with a population of 2.1 million, has been badly hit by COVID-19. But only 55.9 percent of the population have been fully vaccinated so far. — NNN-XINHUA
