France Pre-Orders Sputnik V Vaccines

The President of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur regional council, Renaud Muselier, announced on April 14, 2021, 'I made a pre-order of 500,000 doses of Sputnik V vaccine, according to local media reporting on Twitter.

The Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region is located in southeastern France, bordering Italy and the Mediterranean Sea, home to about 5 million residents.

Currently, the EU has not approved the Sputnik V Vaccine for use.

Separately, Germany-based BioNTech SE and Pfizer confirmed they intend to produce 250 million COVID-19 vaccine doses during the 2Q'21, announced the European Commission's President, Ursula von der Leyen.

'These doses will be distributed pro-rata to the population, among all the Member States.'

'Based on all this, we are now entering into a negotiation with BioNTech-Pfizer for a third contract. This contract will foresee the delivery of 1.8 billion doses of vaccine over the period of 2021 to 2023,' confirmed the European Commission on April 14, 2021.