[ad_1]
The president of the European Commission today asked the European Union to start “as soon as possible” a vaccination campaign against covid-19, which will be launched simultaneously in the 27 Member States, to ensure the eradication of the “horrible virus”.
In a debate in the European Parliament on last week’s summit of EU leaders, Ursula von der Leyen, stressed that “no one should think that they are safe [da pandemia], not when more than 3,000 Europeans die from covid-19 every day ”, but noted that“ finally there is good news ”with the development of vaccines, the first of which should be approved next week.
Reiterating that “the European Commission has negotiated the broadest portfolio of candidate vaccines”, no less than six, von der Leyen pointed out that the first vaccine must be authorized within a few days, after the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has announced the day before that it anticipated the meeting to make a decision on the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine until December 21, a week ahead of schedule.
“Therefore, vaccination can begin immediately, and other [vacinas] it will follow in the New Year. And, in total, we buy more than enough doses for everyone in Europe, and we will continue to be in a position to support our neighbors and partners in the world, so that no one is left behind ”, said the president of the community executive.
Von der Leyen stressed that “to reach the end of the pandemic, however, it is necessary for 70% of the population to be vaccinated”, which he recognized as a “gigantic mission”.
“Therefore, let’s start the vaccination as soon as possible, together, at 27, starting the same day. Let’s start the eradication of this horrible virus together and united, ”he said.
At the European Council on Thursday and Friday of last week, Prime Minister António Costa also called on all Member States of the European Union to initiate vaccination campaigns simultaneously, to guarantee group immunity “at the European level. HUH “.
“I suggested effectively that we could try to coordinate the effort so that we could all start the vaccination process the same day. To have group immunity throughout the EU, it is not enough for one country to achieve that group immunity, it is an effort that must be carried out simultaneously in all states, and the best way for all of us to do it in a coordinated way is to be able to get everything out at the same time ”, he defended.
The European Commission has already signed contracts with the vaccine companies AstraZeneca (300 million doses), Sanofi-GSK (300 million), Johnson & Johnson (200 million), BioNTech and Pfizer (300 million), CureVac (405 million) and Modern (160 million).
At the press conference at the end of the European Council, Von der Leyen said that the EMA should give its opinion on the Moderna vaccine in mid-January, while Oxford and AstraZeneca remain under study.
On Tuesday, the Deputy Director General of Health, commenting on the anticipation of the decision of the European Medicines Agency on the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to December 21, assured that the vaccination plan against covid-19 “is adaptable to circumstances” .
“If that happens, we will be thinking about eight days in advance in relation to vaccination and everything possible must be done so that all logistical problems are anticipated in eight days,” Rui Portugal said at the press conference of the General Directorate de (DGS) on the evolution of the pandemic.
Today’s debate in the European Parliament took place on the same day that the Assembly approved the € 47.5 billion structural fund package designed to help Member States finance measures to mitigate the immediate effects of the pandemic in the most important regions. affected. the so-called ‘React-EU’, part of the European response to the covid-19 crisis.
The covid-19 pandemic caused at least 1,621,397 deaths as a result of more than 72.7 million cases of infection worldwide, according to a report by the French agency AFP.
In Portugal, 5,733 people died out of 353,576 confirmed cases of infection, according to the most recent bulletin from the Directorate General of Health.
The disease is transmitted by a new coronavirus detected at the end of December 2019 in Wuhan, a city in central China.
In Europe, the highest number of fatalities is registered in Italy (65,857 deaths, more than 1.8 million cases), followed by the United Kingdom (64,908 deaths, more than 1.8 million cases), France (59,079 more than 2.3 million cases) and Spain (48,401 deaths, more than 1.7 million cases).
[ad_2]
