EU buys extra 300m COVID-19 vaccine doses from Moderna

The European Union (EU) has signed a second contract with U.S. firm Moderna to purchase additional 300 million COVID-19 vaccine doses, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday.

Hailing it as good news, she said the extra doses added to the portfolio of vaccines the EU had contracted in order to meet its target of fully vaccinating 70 percent of adults by mid-September, reported Xinhua.

With the new agreement, the EU countries now have access to 2.6 billion doses of three EU-authorized vaccines -- Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca. Another three upcoming vaccines are still due to be authorized for use in Europe.

Von der Leyen told a press conference that in numeric terms, Europe had more than enough for its 450 million people, promising to share the excess vaccines with neighboring countries.

To date, approximately 33 million doses have been delivered, and 22 million people have received at least one dose, including 7 million a second dose, she said.

"We must and we will speed up vaccination in the weeks and months ahead," she stressed.

Von der Leyen warned that the increased spread of the new COVID-19 variants -- first identified in Britain, South Africa and Brazil -- is a potential paradigm shift in the global fight against COVID-19.

Over the past weeks, EU countries have observed a substantial increase in the number and proportion of COVID-19 cases caused by these variants, she said.

As the world is struggling to contain the pandemic, vaccination is underway across the EU with the already-authorized coronavirus vaccines.

Meanwhile, 250 candidate vaccines are still being developed worldwide -- 69 of them in clinical trials -- in countries including Germany, China, Russia, Britain and the United States, according to information released by the World Health Organization on Tuesday.