Faced with the EU’s claim, AstraZeneca clarified that “there are currently no planned exports other than to COVAX countries”

The crises between European Union and AstraZeneca This is endless news and statements since, at the end of January, the pharmaceutical company announced to the European Commission that it was not going to be able to achieve, or even come close to, the objectives set by the contract signed between the two parties. This Wednesday, Europe woke up with a new crisis. The Italian newspaper The imprint revealed that the Italian authorities had discovered 29 million doses of AstraZeneca accumulated in a factory in Agnani, near Rome, and ready to ship to the UK.

This number of vaccines could make the difference on both sides of the candidacy: for the EU, this is a supply equivalent to twice the doses received so far by Anglo-Swedish society (16.6 million); For the British, these vials are a must to guarantee the second dose to nearly fifteen million citizens. Otherwise, the continuity of the vaccination plan could suffer.

In the aftermath of this new conflict, the European Union strengthened on Wednesday its monitoring of exports of vaccines against the coronavirus, giving you more leeway to block shipments to countries with higher inoculation rates. “AstraZeneca will not be able to export more COVID-19 vaccines from Europe until it fulfills its contracts with the European Union ”, declared the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, after a meeting of the leaders of the bloc of 27 nations.

“We must and want to explain to our European citizens that they are getting their fair share,” he told a press conference on Thursday evening, adding that companies had to fulfill their contracts with the EU before exporting to other regions. “And that is of course the case for AstraZeneca,” he explained. von der Leyen.

“I think it is clear to the company that, First of all, you have to catch up, it has to fulfill the contract it has concluded with the European Member States, before it can start exporting vaccines again, ”he said.

“We have the tools and we’ll make sure everything stays in Europe until the company complies ”, said the Commissioner for the Internal Market on Friday, Thierry Breton, during a visit to the Barcelona pharmacy factory Reig Jofre, who will fill and bottle the coronavirus vaccine from Johnson & johnson since mid-June.

The former French minister assured that Europe is expected to be the world leader in the production of coronavirus vaccines by the end of the year, with 52 factories participating in the process across the continent. In addition, he claimed that Europe should have vaccinated enough people in the summer, perhaps in mid-July, to reach a level of “global immunity”.

However, since AstraZeneca they communicated that most of the doses at the Catalent plant were destined for the EU and the rest for the poorer countries provided by the COVAX program co-chaired by the World Health Organization (WHO). “There are currently no exports planned other than to COVAX countries. There are 13 million doses of vaccines awaiting quality control to be sent to COVAX and the remaining 16 million will be sent to Europe this month and in April ”, they assured.

In the same line, Mario Gargiulo, regional president of organic products for Europe at Catalent, said Reuters have 29 million doses in the Anagni factory was in accordance with normal procedure and that the company often had more.

For his part, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, made it clear that fully agree with the idea of ​​adopting a stricter line on exports of vaccines by companies that do not respect contractual commitments.

“It’s the end of naivety,” he said at a post-summit press conference. “I support the fact that we must block all exports as long as certain pharmaceutical companies do not honor their commitments to the Europeans.”

With information from Reuters

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