Jan Blatný, the Health Minister for the Czech Republic, said on Wednesday that the country plans on purchasing at least two million doses of COVID-19 vaccines developed through the Pfizer/BioNtech joined efforts.
The country has joined a European Union initiative to buy the vaccines in bulk and distribute them to various countries, and hopefully to the Czech Republic by the first quarter of the next year.
The Czech government has already ordered three million doses of a slightly different vaccine from a British-Swedish company called AstraZeneca, so combined with the doses from Pfizer/BioNtech, the country should have roughly 5 million doses.
“We believe that, as it stands now, we should have around five million doses when the vaccine is available,” the health minister said.
The goal would be to import the vaccines, and then get all health professionals vaccinated first, before distributing to 50-60% of the public.
Pfizer worked with German company BioNtech on a $1.95 billion contract with the US government to produce at least 100 million doses for Americans. On Monday, the company reported that their trials with the vaccine had produced a 90% success rate, and announced it would be ready most likely before the year’s end.
