HELSINKI (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th January, 2021) Pfizer's announcement of a temporal reduction in the deliveries of its COVID-19 vaccine to European countries, including Estonia, is "bad news," Estonian Minister of Social Affairs Tanel Kiik said on Friday.
Earlier in the day, the US pharmaceutical company said that it would temporarily cut shipments of the vaccine in the next three to four weeks due to construction works at its key plant in Belgium, which aimed at ramping up its production capacity starting in mid-February.
"The decline in the supply of BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine to Estonia is bad news. Yesterday, there were rumors, today, official confirmation came. We have prepared a letter to EU Health Commissioner [Stella Kyriakides] from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Denmark and Finland. It is important that the commission does the best to ensure a full supply of vaccines," Kiik said at a press conference.
The Estonian government initially reserved over 600,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, and later an additional 250,000 doses. Apart from that, it booked the supply of several other vaccines against coronavirus � from AstraZeneca (1.33 million doses), Jannsen Pharmaceutica NV (300,000 vaccine courses) and CureVac (659,300 doses).
