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Belgium to buy 10,000 courses each of Pfizer and Merck COVID-19 pills – Metro US

Belgium to buy 10,000 courses each of Pfizer and Merck COVID-19 pills

FILE PHOTO: A handout photo of an experimental COVID-19 treatment
FILE PHOTO: A handout photo of an experimental COVID-19 treatment pill, called molnupiravir and being developed by Merck & Co Inc and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics LP

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Belgium will buy 10,000 courses each of the COVID-19 antiviral oral treatments developed by Pfizer and Merck & CO, a spokesman for the health ministry said in an emailed statement.

Belgium’s health minister said in early December that the government was in talks with Merck for the purchase of molnupiravir, and Belgian health authorities had advised that both molnupiravir and Paxlovid, the drug developed by Pfizer, should be purchased.

“Both talks are finalised and we will buy 10,000 of both,” Arne Brinckman, a spokesman for the Belgian health ministry told Reuters on Monday.

(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio @fraguarascio; Editing by David Goodman)