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EU Commission agrees delivery top-up with Pfizer/BioNTech - Ireland to receive additional 110,000 doses in second quarter

The agreement would see an additional 10 million doses being delivered to member states over the next three months.

LAST UPDATE | 16 Mar 2021

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION has agreed a top-up to vaccine deliveries for the second quarter of the year with pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and BioNTech. 

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen this morning announced the agreement which involves an accelerated delivery of an additional 10 million doses over the next three months.

This will bring the total EU deliveries of this vaccine to 200 million for that quarter.

Ireland’s share of that (around 1.1%) will be more than two million doses. 

Today’s top-up of 10 million will result in an additional 110,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in Ireland in Q2. 

Von der Leyen said this will give member states room to manoeuvre and possibly fill gaps in deliveries. 

“I know how critical Quarter 2 is for the roll-out of our vaccination strategies in member states,” she said. 

These additional doses are to be drawn forward from the option of 100 million doses in the second contract with Pfizer/BioNTech, foreseen for the third and fourth quarters of this year. 

The proposal from the Commission will now go forward for approval by member states in the joint steering board. 

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36 Comments
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    Mute David Dineen
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    Mar 16th 2021, 10:33 AM

    Bring it on, my arm is waiting…

    472
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    Mute Derdaly
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    Mar 16th 2021, 11:06 AM

    @David Dineen: need to start deferring the second dose out in order to get ahead of this. Has worked for both Israel and the UK.

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    Mute Helpless In The Face Of Your Beauty
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    Mar 16th 2021, 12:08 PM

    @Derdaly: it works well for AZ but not so much for Pfizer, according to recent data from the UK. Since we’re giving Pfizer to the most vulnerable/exposed it makes sense to maximize their protection by giving two doses at the correct interval.

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    Mute Derdaly
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    Mar 16th 2021, 6:10 PM

    @Helpless In The Face Of Your Beauty: it’s not a competition between vaccines. It still offers huge benefits from a single dose as we have already seen here. Canadians have tried it with gaps up to 16 weeks without any negative impact. Even doubling the gap to 8 weeks would protect so many more people while supplies ramp up. Irish approach is way too conservative and lacks any sense of urgency.

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    Mute JillyBean
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    Mar 16th 2021, 10:45 AM

    GO ON PFIZER YA GOOD THING!!

    262
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    Mute Declan John Power
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    Mar 16th 2021, 10:35 AM

    Totally misleading headline. So the news here is that we are getting an extra 100k doses over 3 months. So an extra 7000 doses a week. Hardly life changing in fairness

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    Mute Adrian O'Donnell
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    Mar 16th 2021, 10:39 AM

    @Declan John Power: might recover some of the shortfall in recent weeks but not nearly enough. They’ve made a hames of it so far in fairness. Whatever happened to nailing it down to avoid any further mutations?

    149
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    Mute Siomoin O Rian
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    Mar 16th 2021, 10:39 AM

    @Declan John Power: life changing for the50k people who will get them. Don’t be such a negative nelly. It’s better than AZ constantly saying that there are delays

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    Mute Declan O'Dwyer
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    Mar 16th 2021, 10:54 AM

    @Declan John Power: thats 7000 less people to catch the virus per week, potentially 140 less cases requiring hospitalisation and maybe 14 less patients in ICU and perhaps 2 less deaths…. certainly IS life changing!!

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    Mute Mike Kelly
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    Mar 16th 2021, 11:06 AM

    @Declan John Power: ok so let’s
    forget about the overall 2.2 doses of Pfizer, the 600,000 doses of 1 jab j&j vaccines etc coming in the second quarter , enough to to vaccinate nearly 1.6 m people and instead let’s focus on the negative

    61
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    Mute James Gorman
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    Mar 16th 2021, 11:15 AM

    @Adrian O’Donnell: what would you have done differently if you were Taoiseach/Minister/HSE?

    36
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    Mute Peadar O'Comain
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    Mar 16th 2021, 12:09 PM

    @Siomoin O Rian: Negative Nelly…love that! 7000 more people a week than we thought.

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    Mute Lad_The
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    Mar 16th 2021, 12:13 PM

    @Declan John Power: Fair point on the actual number but unfortunate use of the life-changing phrase.
    At least it’s an increase as opposed to the continuous under supply from the AZ shower.
    Good news!

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    Mute Nigel o'Neill
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    Mar 16th 2021, 12:22 PM

    @Declan John Power: the small print often killed a great headline

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    Mute roscommonrebel
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    Mar 16th 2021, 11:03 AM

    Our gombeen leaders would rather our people die than buy the Sputnik V vaccine.
    Micheal Martin wouldn’t dare offend Biden or vonderLeyen.
    We have replaced British rule by becoming a corporate vassal state.

    112
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    Mute Gerard
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    Mar 16th 2021, 11:18 AM

    @roscommonrebel: not everything the Russians do is a conspiracy because Russia is a huge country with a huge number of talented scientists.

    However, there’s still a big question with no obvious answer: why is Russia exporting all of these vaccines before it has even a *reasonable* proportion of its own population vaccinated?

    You would genuinely get the impression that Russia is MORE interested in exporting the vaccine, than protecting its own population.

    Obviously it could just be for expanding their sphere of influence, which is the position everyone seems to assume. But that’s a REALLY large price for Russia to pay for it.

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    Mute Marky Mark
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    Mar 16th 2021, 12:06 PM

    @Gerard: Tell that to the 9 million Stalin ‘Sacrificed’. Russia’s track record is remarkable in that regard and they remain very calculated with their global influence agenda comrades !
    That said, if it works and is available, I for one would welcome it if it speeds up our pathway back to some kind of normality.

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    Mute Ian Forbes
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    Mar 16th 2021, 12:56 PM

    @Gerard: interesting

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    Mute Neil Neart
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    Mar 16th 2021, 1:06 PM

    @Gerard: Making money for the oligarchs who control these companies is more important than the lives of the Russian people. We should not buy the Sputnik vaccine.

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    Mute Niall Ó Cofaigh
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    Mar 16th 2021, 1:41 PM

    @Gerard: I think you will find that Russia is making the vaccine in other countries rather than exporting. I have no idea of volumes made where but over 1billion vaccines are on order and being produced in India, Brazil, China, South Korea, Hungary, and I read that Italy is also to produce the vaccine. Only about 5% of the vaccine produced in Russia is exported. Makes interesting reading https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_V_COVID-19_vaccine

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    Mute Jas
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    Mar 16th 2021, 5:58 PM

    @roscommonrebel: this is the same Russia that is poisoning its political opponents?

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    Mute Ned Gerblansky
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    Mar 16th 2021, 11:01 AM

    @Bill O’Cearbhaill: ah lad, come on now…. Get your head out of YouTube and go out for a walk

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    Mute Robert Clifford
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    Mar 16th 2021, 10:53 AM

    I see this as just another attempt to try and assuage the incandescent European public who can’t quite believe how incredibly absurd the EU have been in relation to pausing the AZ roll out and their pitiful procurement of supplies.

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    Mute Finian Gardner
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    Mar 16th 2021, 11:42 AM

    @Robert Clifford: EU didn’t pause AZ

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    Mute Pseud O'Nym
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    Mar 16th 2021, 12:12 PM

    @Robert Clifford: you’re starting to come across as the kind of guy that spends a lot of time shaking his fist at the sky…

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    Mute Robert Clifford
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    Mar 16th 2021, 12:35 PM

    @Pseud O’Nym: Not today. What a day!!!!

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    Mute Robert Woodward
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    Mar 16th 2021, 1:09 PM

    Why is there no discussion about the lack Moderna vaccines coming into the country.Moderna has only provided 3.2% of the total amount so far .According to the app that’s just 19,000 of the over 600,000 doses distributed.Thats a tiny amount for 3 months since it was approved.There was a photoshoot with Stephen Donnally taking in the first 10,000 in January and we have only received 9000 since then.Surely this is a bigger supply issue than what’s happening with astrazeneca but I have seen no coverage of this anywhere

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    Mute Hugo Bugo
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    Mar 16th 2021, 11:56 AM

    2.2 million, Just tell astrazeneca to go scratch like new Zealand and only use Pfizer vaccine, we are small country we don’t need 10 different vaccines

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    Mute Helpless In The Face Of Your Beauty
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    Mar 16th 2021, 12:09 PM

    @Hugo Bugo: there is no scientific basis for your suggestion.

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    Mute Niall Ó Cofaigh
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    Mar 16th 2021, 1:27 PM

    @Hugo Bugo: that would be fine but we have paid 2/3 of the price up front to cover research and development as did other countries who signed contracts last year. If we cancel the contract on the basis of failed delivery then the only refund we get is the uo front money left, which is probably none. No vaccine company would have developed a vaccine without advanve sales and deposits. If we tell the EU we do not want to draw down our allotted vaccines from one company then the EU is unlikely to divert any to us from another supplier. The AZ contract is available on line to review is I got anything wrong.

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    Mute Normal One
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    Mar 16th 2021, 12:24 PM

    It’s 110,000 extra over the next 3 months and 2.2 million in total. Very misleading headline, sure isn’t that they way of the world ..

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    Mute Gene Johnston
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    Mar 16th 2021, 12:23 PM

    If you take all the ifs, buts, maybes, ” and my understanding is” out of the equation, the position seems to be as follows:
    We’re going to get something sometime. It will be effective to a certain extent and will last an unknown amount of time.

    24
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    Mute Virgil
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    Mar 16th 2021, 1:10 PM

    When all the over 70’s are vaccinated the risk of mortality has decreased enormously so I presume the lockdown will end then? Ah only joking, this is Ireland, where nobody will be allowed move until everyone in the world has been vaccinated

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    Mute JustMeHere
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    Mar 16th 2021, 2:41 PM

    Is this on top of the 46,500 announced last week? Could The Journal actually do some journalism?

    5
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    Mute Bill O'Cearbhaill
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    Mar 16th 2021, 12:26 PM

    @Ned Gerblansky: ah Ned get your heAd out of your beHind, wake up and smell the coffee. Or not…all the one to me. Only offering good insight to the sleeping masses

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    Mute Jack Inman
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    Mar 16th 2021, 9:44 PM

    Awwww, 110,0000…..how cute

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