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Ireland to receive extra 545,000 Pfizer vaccine doses between April and June

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Eilish O'Regan Twitter Email

Ireland is to get 545,000 extra doses of Pfizer BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine from April to June , it emerged today.

It followed a decision by Pfizer to add an additional 50 million doses to its deliveries to the EU in the second quarter.

It will mean that Ireland will get 2.6 million doses of Pfizer vaccine over the three months.

This is enough to vaccinate 1.3 million people.

The announcement comes as some relief as the vaccination roll out here has to be reorganised.

"Welcome news that Ireland will be receiving close to 545,000 extra BioNTech-Pfizer vaccines, starting this month,” Taoiseach Micheál Martin said.

This followed the decision to confine the AstraZeneca vaccine to the over 60s because of a very small risk of blood clots.

Johnson and Johnson deliveries here have also been put on hold as the FDA and the EMA examine reports of a small number of blood clots in people who got the vaccine.

Around 40,000 of the one shot vaccine were due here this month with 605,000 expected over April to June.

EU resident Ursula von der Leyen said the earlier deliveries, which will start this month, will take total supplies to the EU from Pfizer to 250 million doses in the second quarter of this year.

She also confirmed the Commission was in talks with the two companies for a new contract for 1.8 billion doses to be delivered in 2022 and 2023, confirming a Reuters report last week.

The EU has already signed two contracts with Pfizer and BionTech for a total of 600 million doses to be delivered this year.

Visit our Covid-19 vaccine dashboard for updates on the roll out of the vaccination program and the rate of Coronavirus cases Ireland

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