Next week's corona vaccine batch delivery from Pfizer smaller than expected – situation the same across Europe

Finland will receive a batch of the Pfizer-BioNTechin mRNA corona vaccinations that is smaller than expected during the week starting on 18 January. Due to supply difficulties experienced by Pfizer, Finland will receive less than 37,000 doses, which is almost 10,000 doses less than expected. Finland had expected to receive around 50,000 vaccination doses weekly in January and February.

Due to the change, some hospital districts will receive fewer vaccinations next week than anticipated. The reductions will affect those hospital districts which have ordered the largest number of doses. Due to supply difficulties, the vaccination of people in these areas will likely progress slower than originally planned. This may lead to changes to the start of vaccination of older people and the schedule in its entirety.

According to Pfizer, the supply difficulties stem from the reorganisation related to increased capacity. The new arrangements will reduce weekly delivery volumes in Europe for several weeks.
In accordance with the size of its population, Finland will receive 1.23 per cent of the vaccines purchased jointly by the European Union. Next week’s deliveries to other European countries will also be smaller than anticipated. 

Further information:

Mia Kontio
Senior Specialist
Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare
[email protected]