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 The document, seen by Reuters and prepared by the European
Commission, shows the EU is confident of having enough vaccines to
immunize its entire eligible population of 450 million by the end of
September, well beyond the initial goal of inoculating 70% of the
adult population by the end of the summer.
More precisely, the EU expects to get 413 million doses in the
second quarter of this year, and another 529 million in the
July-September period. It received 106 million vaccines in the first
quarter.
The estimates take into account only vaccines from four drugmakers:
Pfizer-BionTech, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca and Moderna.
They exclude doses from German biotech firm CureVac and French
drugmaker Sanofi, which have signed contracts with the EU for
hundreds of millions of doses but are struggling to develop their
vaccines and get them approved by EU regulators.
The numbers are in line with public commitments and previous
announcements, but also include previously unknown targets for the
second half of the year.
The EU has also said it plans to share this year at least 100
million doses with poorer nations outside the bloc.
LION'S SHARE
Pfizer and BioNTech account for more than half the supplies in the
second quarter of this year and for nearly 40% of total deliveries
in the third quarter, making it by far the main supplier to the EU,
the document shows.
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 It also shows that the two
companies will deliver 200 million doses in the
July-September period, nearly completing their
commitment to supplying 600 million vaccines
under two initial contracts with the EU.
The two drugmakers are also expected to deliver
roughly another 200 million doses in the fourth
quarter of the year, the largest part of which
would come from a third contract for up to 1.8
billion doses the EU signed with them in May and
which runs until 2023. Pfizer
was not immediately available for a comment.
In total, the EU expects to receive 452 million doses in the fourth
quarter of the year, including several millions from AstraZeneca,
even though it had been required to deliver all its 300 million
contracted doses by the end of June.
The company in March said it would aim to deliver only 100 million
doses to the EU by the end of June due to production problems and
export restrictions.
The EU document is based on the company's estimates rather than on
the EU request to deliver 120 million doses by the end of the second
quarter.
That request was made by EU lawyers in a Brussels court earlier in
May, with judges expected to decide next month.
(Reporting by Sabine Siebold and Francesco Guarascio @fraguarascio;
Editing by John Chalmers, Barbara Lewis and Nick Macfie)
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