EU, 화이자백신 1억회 추가주문…"아스트라제네카 1월보급 불가"

The European Union is on track to secure more COVID-19 vaccines developed by Pfizer and BioNTech,... which it describes as safe and effective.
This comes as the bloc is undergoing a mass vaccination program as many countries there are in a race against time to contain a new variant of the virus.
Kim Hyo-sun reports.
The European Union has placed an additional order to buy 1-hundred million more doses of Pfizer and BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine.
The President of the European Commission explained via Twitter on Tuesday that this brings the total vaccines from the two firms,... that have assessed to be safe and effective, to 3-hundred million doses.
The new order comes as some of the vaccine candidates ordered by the EU faced unexpected delays in clinical trials.
The bloc also said the extra 1-hundred million doses will be supplied at the same price as contracted previously.
Pfizer explained on the same day that all 3-hundred million doses are expected to be delivered by 2021.
The EU also expects to approve the vaccine developed by Moderna sometime next month.
It has placed an initial order of 80 million doses, with an option for 80 million more that will be exercised going forward.
Meanwhile, the European Medicines Agency says it's unlikely to be able to approve the COVID-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford in January.
The regulator explained no application has been filed for the vaccine yet,... adding that additional information on its quality will be needed for approval.
Last week, AstraZeneca said its vaccine should offer "1-hundred percent protection" against the new virus variant first found in Britain,... adding it's conducting further studies to confirm its efficacy.
Kim Hyo-sun, Arirang News.