Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia and Slovakia may have a higher proportion of the 10 million vaccines that the European Union will receive in advance from Pfizer to compensate for the delays they have faced in their vaccination campaigns after opting for AstraZeneca vaccine , which did not meet the expected delivery schedule.
Nineteen member states, including Spain, agreed to cede to these five countries a fraction of the proportionate share of these 10 million vaccines, while Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovenia decided not to share their allocation.
This means that, for example, in Spain it would have been appropriate to receive exactly 1,057,166 of the 10 million that Pfizer has advanced -because its population represents about 10% of the European population-, but has opted to cede a third so that Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia and Slovakia can speed up their vaccination campaigns and not stay in the saga for not having enough doses of AstraZeneca.
In this way, Spain will receive 740,016 doses of the 10 million advanced by Pfizer, according to a document which sets out the exact amounts that will receive each of the Twenty and to which Efe had access.
Thanks to the gesture of generosity from Spain and eighteen other countries, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia and Slovakia will receive, in addition to their proportional share per population of the total 10 million, an additional 2.85 million that will only be to distribute among them.
The joint purchase of vaccines by the European Commission implies that each country has access to these drugs in proportion to its population, but states could choose to prioritize certain vaccines before knowing how their distribution would develop.
Bulgaria, for example, opted for AstraZeneca and not Pfizer-BioNTech because its logistics were easier and it has had to suffer and face the cuts and delays in deliveries of the former.
The Portuguese presidency of the Council, which drafted the distribution proposal, explained in a statement that this is an “extraordinary” solution that allows “a significant expression of solidarity through the distribution of almost three million vaccines to the Member States that need it most “.
“I welcome the agreement reached today on the solidarity distribution of vaccines between EU member states, which allows at least 45% of the population of each of them to be vaccinated by the end of June. We must now speed up vaccination and launching a fair, ecological and digital recovery “, tweeted the Portuguese Prime Minister, Antònio Costa.
Austria had been one of the countries that had initially advocated for this solidarity, but distanced itself from the final agreement when it became clear that it was not one of the countries most in need of an extra vaccine.