EU Needs More Vaccine Production Capacity – Merkel

BERLIN, GERMANY – MARCH 22: German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks to the media to announce further measures to combat the spread of the coronavirus and COVID-19, the disease the virus causes, after she held a teleconference with the governors of Germany’s 16 states on March 22, 2020 in Berlin, Germany. Following her speech, Merkel went home to quarantine after a doctor she was in contact with tested positive for coronavirus. The Chancellor during her speech announced the country will ban gatherings of more than two people, with the exception of families and households, as a measure to combat the spread of the virus that has so far caused over 23,000 infections and 92 deaths. (Photo by Clemens Bilan – Pool/Getty Images)

European Union leaders will discuss how to make sure more vaccines are made on European soil since the bloc’s supply problems are more to do with a lack of production capacity than with under – ordering, German Chancellor Angela Merkel Said.

‘British production sites are manufacturing for Britain and the United States is not exporting, so we are reliant on what we can make in Europe’, she told legislators ahead on EU Leaders’ summit later on Thursday.

‘We have to assume that the virus, with its mutation, may be occupying us for a long time to come so the question goes far beyond this year‘, she added.

In addition, more work had to be done on ensuring the rest of the world was supplied with vaccines, since otherwise new mutations would keep emerging, some of which might turn to be vaccine – resistant, Merkel warned.