Pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and BioNTech will be producing 2.5 billion coronavirus vaccines this year, 500 million more than the expected 2 billion, BioNTech announced on Tuesday.
As the vaccine requires two doses, this means over one billion people could be fully protected against the virus. Production rates could possibly increase further, according to Ugur Sahin, BioNTech’s CEO.
This announcement, alongside the news that Belgium will receive a share of the ten million coronavirus vaccines which Pfizer promised to deliver to the EU by this summer, comes at a pivotal moment in the country’s vaccination rollout.
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In Belgium, over 1,260,000 people have received at least one shot of a coronavirus vaccine, but the rollout has been slow as a result of delayed and decreased deliveries from Moderna and AstraZeneca, which recently informed the European Commission it will deliver only half of the 180 million doses promised for the second quarter.
Lauren Walker
The Brussels Times
