What is the sixth dose? Thanks for asking!

From the outset, each vial of the Pfizer and BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine was supposed to contain five doses. But it has since emerged that a sixth dose can in fact be extracted from each vial. So, is this extra dose a welcome surprise which will allow vaccination programmes to move forward more quickly?

Let’s go back to Germany at the end of December 2020. The European Medicines Agency recommended that the Cominarty vaccine from BioNTech and Pfizer be authorised. According to official guidelines, each vial contained enough for five vaccine doses.

The two pharmaceutical giants then asked the EU to allow doctors to extract an extra sixth dose from their vials. The EMA regulator approved this proposition on January 8th 2021, and a spokesperson from BioNTech insisted that the cost of the EU’s vaccine order would remain the same.  

So are we saying that European member states are both saving money and able to vaccinate more people with the same number of vials? 

It seemed that way at first. But ten days later, Pfizer and BioNTech changed tune. As each vial was now considered to contain six doses, rather than five, they would deliver less vials to European states. 

Having ordered 600 million doses of the Cominarty vaccine, the EU would now receive only 100 million vials, rather than the initially expected 120 million.

What’s going to happen with all the remaining vials then? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!

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