(Fixes typo in headline)
By Sabine Siebold and Francesco Guarascio
BRUSSELS, March 16 (Reuters) - The European Commission
expects to receive about 200 million doses of the
Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in the second
quarter, it said for the first time on Tuesday.
The EU is aiming to vaccinate at least 255 million people,
or 70% of its adult population, by the end of the summer but has
faced criticism for the slow rollout of its inoculation drive.
Besides supply delays from some drugmakers and hiccups in
vaccination plans, the suspension of inoculations using the
AstraZeneca vaccine due to potential health issues is
also affecting the bloc's campaign.
The EU had not previously said how many doses of the
Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, which is administered in two shots, it
would receive in the April-June period under two confidential
supply contracts with the drugmakers.
The expected Pfizer second-quarter deliveries will include
10 million doses originally due in the third and fourth quarters
of this year, the Commission said.
The announcement does not change the EU's overall forecast
for vaccine supplies of 300 million doses in the second quarter
from all the drugmakers the bloc has signed contracts with.
"These accelerated 10 million doses will bring the total
doses of BioNTech/Pfizer in quarter two up to over 200 million,"
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.
"This is very good news. It gives member states room to
manoeuvre and possibly fill gaps in deliveries," she said.
Pfizer confirmed the EU statement regarding its
second-quarter supply.
The additional 10 million doses would be moved forward from
an option for 100 million doses in a second contract the EU
signed with the drugmakers in January, the EU statement said.
In total, the EU has booked 600 million doses from the two
companies in the two contracts.
A Commission spokesman told a news conference that the
announcement would not lead at this point to a revision of the
EU's overall second-quarter delivery forecasts, even though the
total announced and expected deliveries was now higher.
The spokesman said delivery schedules could always change so
forecasts were not always updated after announcements.
The EU expects to get 55 million vaccine doses from Johnson
& Johnson and 35 million from Moderna in the
second quarter, according to a delivery schedule published by
the Italian government and an internal document on supply
forecasts from Germany's health ministry.
AstraZeneca last week announced that it aimed to deliver 70
million doses to the 27-nation bloc in the second quarter, well
below its original contractual obligation of 180 million.
In the first three months of the year, the EU expects to
receive about 100 million doses from Pfizer, AstraZeneca and
Moderna.
(Reporting by Sabine Siebold amd Francesco Guarascio; editing
by Marine Strauss, Jason Neely and David Clarke)