Everything is ready for the EU to start administering the Janssen vaccine. The American drugmaker Johnson&Johnson (Janssen in its European subsidiary) has announced that it is reactivating deliveries of its vaccine to the EU, shortly after the European Medicines Agency (EMA) gave it its backing. The regulator concluded the drug is safe despite the fact that possible "very rare" cases of thrombosis must be included among its side effects. This is exactly the same verdict that the European regulator issued with the AstraZeneca vaccine, with the difference that this time the cases of thrombosis analysed come from the United States, since the Janssen doses had not yet begun to be administered in Europe. Thus, the EMA is again clear that there is a much greater chance of being hospitalised or dying from coronavirus than from thrombosis very rarely caused by the AstraZeneca or Janssen vaccines. It is now up to European governments to decide whether, how and when they resume vaccination.

The European Commission is throwing itself into Pfizer/BioNTech's hands. After problems with AstraZeneca and new complications with the Janssen vaccine, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has announced that these delays are expected be compensated for with Pfizer vaccines, which will advance to this April the delivery of 50 million doses initially planned for the fourth quarter. Of these 50 million, five million are for Spain. It has also confirmed negotiations for a third contract with Pfizer/BioNTech Pharmaceuticals to secure up to 1.8 billion additional doses between 2022 and 2023.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is investigating a possible link between four cases of severe thrombosis and the Janssen vaccine. The regulator informed of this action on Friday as part of the conclusions of this week's expert committee meeting, which was primarily aimed at looking into rare cases of thrombosis that have occurred after receiving AstraZeneca's vaccine. "At the moment it is not clear that there is a causal association between the Janssen vaccine and these cases," the statement said.

The fourth coronavirus vaccine has arrived in Europe. This Thursday the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has approved the vaccine from Johnson & Johnson's European subsidiary Janssen. This vaccine is an important step for the European Union's vaccination strategy because it only requires a single dose and does not need special refrigeration, thus allowing the pace of immunisation to be accelerated once it starts to be distributed. This authorisation also has a particular implication for Catalonia, because Janssen has an agreement with Reig Jofre to mass produce and package the vaccine at the new plant in Sant Joan Despí. It only needs the approval of the European Commission, which is expected to arrive this afternoon, so that it can begin to be distributed.