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BRUSSELS: The European Commission declined to comment directly on Friday (December 18) on a leak of how much it would pay for doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, emphasizing confidentiality clauses with the companies involved.
Spokespersons for the EU executive were questioned about information revealed on Thursday in a tweet from a junior minister in the Belgian government offering a breakdown of the costs of six vaccines in the Commission’s portfolio.
The tweet was deleted shortly after, but the screenshots were quickly posted on social media.
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“We can’t say anything about this,” one of the spokesmen, Stefan de Keersmaecker, told reporters, without denying the accuracy of the tweet.
“Everything that has to do with the information on prices of vaccines is protected by confidentiality. This is something very important,” he said.
The commission’s chief spokesman, Eric Mamer, added that the companies supplying the vaccines “required by contract” that the companies supplying the vaccines “keep secret about the prices paid.”
Without that, he said, “we would not have had those contracts.”
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The tweeted information showed the prices of six of the seven vaccines the Commission has purchased.
The price per dose ranged from 1.78 euros (2.20 US dollars) for a possible vaccine from the British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, to 14.70 euros (18 US dollars) for the most expensive jab, from the American firm Moderna .
The price of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, so far the only one that has received authorization, for use in the UK, the US and probably next week in the EU, was 12 euros per dose.
Contacted by AFP for comment, Pfizer did not immediately respond.
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De Keermaecker said the confidentiality clause in contracts is not only to protect “sensitive business information” but also “the public interest.”
“If all this sensitive information were made public, this would weaken the position of the negotiators of the Commission and of the member states involved in these negotiations,” he said.
The information tweeted gave the following price per dose for each vaccine manufacturer, in euros or US dollars according to the respective contract:
1. AstraZeneca: € 1.78
2. Johnson & Johnson: US $ 8.50
3. Sanofi / GlaxoSmithKline: € 7.56
4. Pfizer / BioNTech: € 12.00
5. Curevac: € 10.00
6. Modern: US $ 18.00
Furthermore, on Thursday, the European Commission announced a seventh contract with the American biotech company Novavax for 100 million doses, the price of which was not released under the confidentiality agreement.
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