Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia and Slovakia will get a higher proportion of the 10 million vaccines the European Union will receive in advance from Pfizer to make up for the delays they have faced in their vaccination campaigns after opted for the AstraZeneca vaccine, which did not meet the expected delivery schedule.
Nineteen Member States, including Spain, have agreed to give these five countries a proportionate share of these 10 million vaccines, while Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovenia have decided not to share their allocation.
This means that, for example, Spain should have received exactly 1,057,166 of the 10 million that Pfizer has advanced – because its population represents about 10% of the European population – but has chosen to give up a third for as Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia and Slovakia can speed up their vaccination campaigns and cannot be left behind due to the lack of sufficient doses of AstraZeneca.
In this way, Spain will receive 740,016 doses out of the 10 million that Pfizer has advanced, according to a document that establishes the exact amounts that each of the twenty-seven will receive and to which Efe had access.
Due to the generosity of Spain and eighteen other countries, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia and Slovakia will receive, in addition to the proportional share of the total population of 10 million, another 2.85 million that will have to be distributed only among themselves.
The European Commission’s joint purchase of vaccines implies that each country has access to these medicines in proportion to its population, but states could choose to prioritize certain vaccines before they know how their distribution will evolve.
Bulgaria, for example, opted for AstraZeneca and not Pfizer-BioNTech, as its logistics were lighter and it had to suffer and cope with reductions and delays in deliveries of the former.
The Portuguese Presidency of the Council, which drafted the distribution proposal, explained in a statement that it is an “extraordinary” solution that allows “a significant expression of solidarity by distributing almost three million vaccines to Member States. the most. “
“I welcome the agreement reached today on the joint 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. Now we need to accelerate vaccination and start a fair process, ecological and digital recovery, “Portuguese Prime Minister Antònio Costa wrote on Twitter.
Austria was one of the countries that initially supported such solidarity, but distanced itself from the final agreement when it became clear that it was not one of the countries most in need of additional vaccines.