Purchase of vaccines from Pfizer. Poland can negotiate agreements

“For Warsaw, negotiations with the company are crucial, because vaccines that have so far been financed from the state budget will have to pay for vaccines from this year National Health Fund. PLN 5.5 billion was guaranteed for this purpose in its reserve fund. The problem is that the National Health Fund currently lacks over PLN 10 billion. However, money from the reserve fund cannot be reached, writes Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

This money is blocked, among others, due to waiting for the result of talks with Pfizer, to whom Poland owes money. Our country would like to write off part of the supplies and quotas, and spread the rest over time. Both are currently suspended.

In theory, until yesterday (Monday – February 28), the decision of the European Commission on contracts with Pfizer was to be made. However, according to “DGP”, negotiations are still ongoing.

“One of the reasons is that the Commission is waiting to see what Poland’s talks with Pfizer will look like,” says one of our interlocutors, the newspaper reads.

Other countries are also interested in changing the rules for supplying COVID-19 vaccines. “Dziennik Gazeta Prawna” reports that talks with the Commission on this matter are conducted, among others, by Latvia and Slovakia.

The reason is similar to that in Poland – they have too much stock to make sense to fulfill contracts and buy more doses. Czechs have 8.5 million doses, and the demand for them is eight times lower. What’s more, to date, 7 million doses have already been thrown away due to exceeding the expiry date. When asked by “DGP” about whether they will conduct negotiations with Pfizer, the Czech Ministry of Health replies that they are conducting them with the help of the European Commission.