Europe prepares to avert a new wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in the autumn.
The European Commission has reached an agreement with the manufacturers for the deliveries in October of vaccine doses adapted to the new variants . Pfizer Biontech and Moderna, which produce the mRna vaccine, will have to "reschedule deliveries in the second half of the year, when it is likely we will need them most" and deliveries will be "vaccines adapted to variants", explains the Commissioner for Health Stella Kyriakides.
"The development of effective vaccines marked a turning point in the fight against the pandemic. But as we all know it is not over," said Prime Minister Mario Draghi at the Global Covid Summit at the White House, at which it was announced that the United States and other world leaders pledge to allocate more than three billion to fight the pandemic .
Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen reiterated their commitments to "strong cooperation towards five key agenda goals", from vaccination campaign fairness to strengthening production and supplies, improving healthcare architecture global preparations to identify, monitor and combat future pathogens up to the research and development of new vaccines, therapies and diagnoses.
Italy will allocate an additional 200 million euros to the Act Accelerator , a global initiative on treatments and vaccines, and will allocate another 31 million doses of the vaccine to Covax, the vaccine program for poorer countries, with some "having a coverage rate below 10% ". The premier then explained that the Italian presidency of the G20 "has launched a joint Finance-Health task force, to explore a new tool to finance pandemic prevention, preparedness and response", to work together "urgently. and determination ".
Brussels has instead decided that the possibility for member countries to grant extraordinary state aid to deal with the emergency will end on June 30, a measure adopted in March 2020 which allowed governments to obtain a total of 3 trillion billion, of which only 730 actually spent until now.
