Health Minister Arunas Dulkys said during the Cabinet meeting on Friday that the government had agreed to buy an additional number of this vaccine under the advance purchase agreement, and the decision to update it was needed after the European Commission entered into a regular purchase contract.
In his words, under the updated contract, countries will not only be able to buy the existing vaccines, but also acquire the company's future vaccines adapted to new coronavirus mutations.
"There's one new thing we need to know. At the time when the European Commission was entering into advance purchase agreements, barely anyone knew and talked about possible mutations. In this case, the contract is updated with one new element that member states have the right to renegotiate vaccines deliveries, if the European Medicines Agency and the producers started having updates vaccines adapted to mutations," the minister said.
Lithuania has made decision to buy coronavirus vaccines from a total of seven companies but the EMA has approved only three vaccines, including those produced by Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca. They all are already being used in Lithuania, and the total number of vaccines Lithuania plans to acquire stands at around 9.5 million.