1.12 Public access to documents  2 TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS  2.1 Introduction to tender specifications  2.1.1 General background COVID-19  9  2 https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/covid-19-risk-assessment-increased-transmission-12th-update-september- 2020.pdf  In the general implementation of its activities and for the processing of tendering procedures in particular,  ECDC observes Council Regulation (EC) No. 1049/2001 of 30 May 2001 regarding public access to European  Parliament, Council and Commission documents.  This part of the tender specifications will provide information regarding the topic of the tender. It will  describe with the nature of the services and the required results. It will also describe the minimum  requirements which must be met by the tender during the execution of the contract otherwise it’s  compliance will be questioned. General information is applicable to all the lots. Lots specific information will appear under the heading of  that lot.  The COVID pandemic has caused significant harm worldwide with over 109 million cases (of those  21,113,083 in the EU/EEA) and 2.4 million deaths (of those 515,519 in the EU/EEA) as of 18 February 2021.  In an analysis performed by the ISARIC (International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infections  Consortium) COVID-19 database, 18% of hospitalised patients were admitted to an ICU or high  dependency unit 2 . As of 4 March 2021, several EU/EEA countries are still experiencing widespread  community transmission partly due to SARS-Cov-2 emerging variants of concern and in some countries the  healthcare system is under considerable strain. Several vaccines against COVID-19 have been developed and currently four have received conditional  marketing authorisation for the European Union by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). These vaccines  (Comirnaty, an mRNA vaccine developed by Pfizer/BioNTech; COVID-19 Vaccine Moderna, an mRNA  vaccine from Moderna Inc.; COVID-19 Vaccine Vaxzevria, a viral vector vaccine from Astra Zeneca/Oxford  University; COVID-19 Vaccine Janssen, a viral vector vaccine from by Janssen-Cilag International N.V.).  Other vaccines still under development that could reach the EU market in 2021, use different  manufacturing technologies and have different benefit-risk profiles.  In 2018, the Council recommendation on Strengthened Cooperation against Vaccine-preventable Diseases  (2018/C 466/01) called on the European Commission to work with the Member States and with the  support and cooperation with the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and ECDC in order to “continuously  monitor the benefits and risks of vaccines and vaccinations at EU level including through post-marketing  authorisation studies”. In the Communication from the Commission Preparedness for COVID-19  vaccination strategies and vaccine deployment from 15 October 2020 established that “The European  Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and European Medicines Agency, in close collaboration with  the Commission, Member States, European and international partners are establishing enhanced vaccine 