Cyprus has secured an additional 565 thousand doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine through the EU, with the total number of doses that have been ordered from Pfizer/BioNTech reaching 957,000.
A press release issued by the Health Ministry said that Cyprus has secured though the EU more than 3 million doses.
More specifically Cyprus secured 195,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine from the 100 million that have been allocated to the EU. Moreover, through the additional contract that the EU has concluded for 200 million more dozes for the EU member states, an order has been placed for 370,000 additional doses.
According to the Ministry, Cyprus participated in the two processes with a view to increase the availability of vaccines earlier than the initial planning to cover the needs of all the population, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, since the additional quantities that have been ordered from Pfizer/BioNTech are expected to be delivered during the second and third quarters of 2021.
In view of the licensing of the AstraZeneca vaccine at the end of January and subject to the submission and approval of the applications for the Johnson&Johnson (Janssen) and CureVac vaccines, Cyprus is expected to receive adequate quantities of vaccines to move forward with the inoculations of 120 thousand people until the end of March 2021 and 450 thousand more people until the end of June 2021.
Under the condition that these vaccines will be approved and on the basis of the preliminary planning, the aim is the whole population to be vaccinated until the end of September 2021.