By the end of the year, EU countries will receive vaccines for new covid mutations
Update: 09/07/2022 20:33
Issued by: 07/09/2022, 19:52
Prague – By the end of this year, EU countries will always have vaccines modified for new mutations. Deliveries in the coming years will be discussed. This was said by Czech Minister of Health Vlastimil Válek (TOP 09) after a meeting with the vaccine as part of an informal meeting of health ministers in Prague. According to Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides, the agreement is also about greater flexibility of supply according to the needs of member countries. According to her, the EU must communicate in general and clearly to support trust in vaccination. Other topics discussed by the ministers of the EU countries, representatives of Iceland, Norway and Switzerland, the European health authorities EMA and ECDC and the World Health Organization were oncology and aid to Ukraine.
The first vaccines adapted to the BA.1 variant of the coronavirus have already been delivered to some European countries, including the Czech Republic. They will be used as booster doses, especially for risk groups. “We switched to modified vaccines that are against both the old and new omicron mutations. Whenever a new variant becomes available, we get the latest one,” said Válek. After September 19, he is already expecting vaccines adapted to variants BA.4 and BA.5. “The agreement is that we will not waste resources,” added Válek.
Ministers met with manufacturers Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech under the banner of the European Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA). “The negotiations took place very constructively, but understandably it was a sharp negotiation,” stated Válek. He added that the attitude of all European countries is uniform, and so are EC and HERA.
What the deliveries will look like in 2023 and beyond will continue to be discussed. “Shipments planned for the end of this year will thus be moved to 2023, and shipments for 2023, according to the needs of the member states, to the following year,” added the ministry in a press release. According to Deputy Minister of Health Jakub Dvořáček, the contract with Moderna was supposed to end this year, with Pfizer next year.
According to information from July, the Czech Republic has paid 19 billion crowns for vaccines so far. According to that’s vaccination more than 17.9 million vaccine doses were administered in the Czech Republic, of which 83 percent were from Pfizer/BioNTech and nine percent from Moderna. Others remain in stock. According to information from the ministry, the Czech Republic also donated vaccines abroad for 272 million CZK in July, while substances worth 190 million CZK had to be disposed of because they had expired. According to Válk’s earlier words, the Czech Republic has ordered additional vaccines, a total of roughly five for each resident of the Czech Republic.
“Clear, coherent messages must be sent out to improve citizens’ confidence in vaccination and the reluctance to get vaccinated several times. The pandemic is not over and the public needs to be told clearly. Vaccination, including booster doses, remains our strongest weapon against covid,” said Kyriakides. According to him, one of the strongest appeals made today is the emphasis on a robust vaccination campaign in all countries.
A professional conference will also be devoted to the topic of vaccination in general and related communication in November. He expects the conclusions to be adopted at the December meeting of ministers in Brussels. The commissioner also mentioned the monkey, against which HERA has already secured more than 300,000 doses. According to the commissioner, the number of new cases has been decreasing for six weeks, which she attributed to a desirable change in the behavior of the population as a result of better information about the spread of this disease.
Ministers also discussed the future of the European plan to fight cancer and help Ukraine in the health sector. The ministers support the intention of further developing the plan, for which the EU has set aside four billion euros. The ministers will definitely confirm it also at the December meeting.
“The EU is well aware that if this action plan is not one of the pillars in the coming years, cancer will become the number one disease,” Válek said. According to him, without an emphasis on prevention, 20 to 25 percent of citizens in the EU could suffer from some kind of cancer.
According to the EC commissioner, she will issue new recommendations on the possibility of screening residents for the early detection of various types of cancer, so-called screenings, on September 21. “The current recommendations have been in place since 2003, so it is high time we revised them in light of the latest scientific findings,” she said. In the Czech Republic, people can thus be screened for the risk of breast, colon and rectal and uterine cancer, lung cancer has also increased since this year, and according to Válk, prostate cancer is also being considered. Most cancers are fundamentally more treatable if doctors detect them early.
The ministers also discussed the further development of the Ukrainian healthcare system. Even before the meeting, some ministers expressed concern that another wave of migration awaits Europe in the winter. “We debated that if the conflict lasts a long time, financial aid will also be necessary for the receiving countries,” Válek said. He considers it a success that even though refugees can make up almost four percent of the population in the Czech Republic, the availability of care for Czech citizens has not decreased. For the time being, according to information from health insurance companies, they are drawing less health care than expected, and the costs are lower than for the average Czech insured person.