The EU is to receive 50 million more doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine in the next three months, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said.

She said the EU is turning more heavily to BioNTech/Pfizer to make up for suspended Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses and for longer-term needs to fight the mutating coronavirus.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin tweeted that Ireland would receive an extra 545,000 doses, with delivery to begin this month.

The move will help to make up for the shortfall of the J&J jabs that were meant to start rolling out, Ms von der Leyen said in a televised statement.

The EU is also negotiating with BioNTech/Pfizer for 1.8 billion doses of a second-generation of its mRNA vaccine to combat variants, to be delivered in 2022 and 2023, she said.

“As we can see, with the announcement by Johnson & Johnson yesterday, there are still many factors that can disrupt the planned delivery schedules of vaccines,” she said.