European leaders double down on need to speed up vaccination program

The European Union needs to be faster in its efforts to vaccinate people against the coronavirus, the 27 heads of state said on Thursday, as the region continues to struggle with a bumpy rollout. The EU has faced production, delivery and red tape issues in the deployment of Covid vaccines and has therefore struggled to catch up with the inoculation pace seen in elsewhere.

The European Commission said Thursday said that it expects about 100 million doses of vaccines to have been delivered to the region by the end of the first quarter. This is then expected to jump to about 500 million doses delivered by the end of June.

They are particularly worried about new Covid variants, which are believed to be more infectious and have already been identified in countries across Europe. A speedy vaccination process could help protect the region’s population before the virus mutates significantly.

To this end, the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, is working with pharmaceutical firms in an effort to avoid any further bottlenecks in the delivery process and is looking at having more production plants in the continent.

European leaders double down on need to speed up vaccination program, CNBC, Feb 26