Covid vaccine, “this is what the doses will cost for EU countries”

Published on: 12/18/2020 12:48 PM

EU countries will pay 12 euros per dose for the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BionTech and $ 18 the dose for the Modern. These are the prices reported by the Flemish daily Het Laatste Nieuws, which published a screenshot of a tweet by Belgian budget secretary Eva de Bleeker, who launched the prices online by mistake. The undersecretary later deleted the tweet, but Hln captured it and posted it. For the MEP Peter Liese (CDU Germany), head of health of the PPE group, the prices reported in the tweet published by Hln are “realistic”.

According to the table, the vaccine Oxford / AstraZeneca It is the cheapest (1.78 euros per dose). by Curevac are 10 euros per dose, for Sanofi / Gsk 7.56 euros per dose, per Johnson and Johnson $ 8.5 per serving. Until now, prices have been kept confidential, especially since the Commission is still negotiating a contract with Novavax.

Triggering the price spread, which until now had remained confidential, as well as the pre-purchase contracts signed by the European Commission with pharmaceutical companies remain secret (not for the Member States, but for public opinion), was an altercation via Twitter , all in Flemish, between De Bleeker, who plays in the Open Vlaamse Liberalen in Democraten, a Flemish liberal democratic party, and the rivals of the N-Va (Nieuw Vlaamse Alliantie), center-right independentists, today in opposition.

The N-Va, reconstructs the Brussels Times, had argued that the federal government had not allocated money for vaccines in 2021. De Bleeker responded, through social networks, that this year the government has allocated 297 million euros, plus 500 million for next year.

Taken by the controversial face in the response to political opponents, as is the case with social networks, De Bleeker did not just provide the total figure, but accompanied it, meticulously, with the figures related to each vaccine, in a table. “I was too transparent,” admitted politics, Le Soir reports.

In doing so, the undersecretary disseminated information that in theory should have remained confidential, because it was protected by the confidentiality clauses provided in the contracts signed by the EU, on behalf of the Member States, with manufacturers. So much so that the Commission, although the figures are already public, has been careful not to confirm them:

“We can not pronounce ourselves – replied Health spokesman Stefan de Keersmaecker, during the press conference in Brussels – the prices of vaccines are covered by confidentiality clauses for good reasons”, including the fact that the Commission “is still negotiating with other producers “, in particular with the American Novavax. On the fact that in the USA it seems that some vials distributed by Pfizer and BionTech do not contain five doses of vaccine each, but sometimes six or even seven, the Commission does not comments: “We have no comment, we cannot comment on contracts negotiated by the US” we have comments on prices and roads, “responds principal spokesman Eric Mamer.