BD, a leading global medical technology company, has announced that it has received orders for needles and syringes in the event of a pandemic, for a total of more than one billion injection devices to support global efforts in COVID-19 vaccination planning.

This milestone reflects the 400 million doses distributed to European countries, including Germany, Belgium, Spain, France , the Netherlands and the UK, among others. It also reflects governments around the world, including the US, Australia, Canada, and Saudi Arabia, as well as nongovernmental organisations that support vaccine deployment in developing countries.

Shipments are already underway and over 300 million injection devices have been delivered worldwide to date, including 125 million in Europe. The remaining orders must be delivered before the end of 2021 in order to ensure vaccination.

BD continues to have discussions with governments and non-governmental organisations on the need to place immediate orders for delivery no later than 2021-2022.

"This step is more than just a number - it represents hundreds of millions of people in Europe and around the world, such as frontline workers and relatives at risk who will now be able to get vaccinated as soon as the vaccines are available,” said Roland Goette , Deputy Managing Director, President, BD Europe, Middle-East and Africa Business. 

The company continues to carefully plan its supply capabilities to ensure that maximum volume can be applied to COVID-19 related activities while minimising impacts on routine healthcare and annual immunisation programmes, influenza and childhood immunisations.

In addition to the actions immediately taken to prepare for the COVID-19 vaccination, BD is also working on several fronts to help the global community prepare for future vaccination campaigns against the pandemic by:

• Partnership with the US government on a $70 million investment project to expand the activities and production capacity of comics in Nebraska . The latter is expected to be online in the summer of 2021.
• Investing approximately $1.2 billion over 4 years to expand and modernise manufacturing capacity, pre-filled syringe technology and advanced drug delivery systems at its six global manufacturing sites, and to implement a new manufacturing plant in Europe.
• Actively engaging with medical technology associations and research groups to address challenges, find solutions and pursue innovation to support a future, more sustainable immunisation ecosystem.