A black market for coronavirus vaccines in Europe? Suspicions and millionaire offers

Member States of the European Union cannot buy legally vaccines against the coronavirus outside the block mechanism to which everyone is committed and which distributes doses according to the population of each country. But under the table there might be a parallel market dealing with delays in distribution and immunization plans amid a third wave of the pandemic.

The European Commission has explained since January that each Member State is free to withdraw from a specific contract with a pharmaceutical company to negotiate bilaterally with this same company and without completely leaving the mechanism. But none of the bloc’s 27 governments did and all have signed the conditions that the big pharmaceuticals have negotiated with the European Commission.

These companies have been saying for two months that they are trying to do everything possible to honor these contracts, although none of them strictly respect, mostly AstraZeneca, which has promised for example 180 million doses in the second quarter and will not even deliver 70 million. They ensure that your production capacity is at the limit and that they deliver everything they have. But the story seems to be starting to show more disturbing cracks.

The Belgian Ministry of Health confirmed to the newspaper The evening you received an offer from an intermediary to purchase 1.5 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine produced by the Serum Institute of India, an Indian pharmaceutical company which works for the Anglo-Swedish company AstraZeneca among others.

Officially, this company, which prides itself on being the world’s largest producer of vaccines, produces for the Indian market and the doses AstraZeneca hopes to sell to low-income countries, but the Belgian case shows that this is not always the case.

This intermediary, that the Belgian Minister of Health Frank Vandenbroucke did not identify, would have proposed “a few weeks ago” to the Brussels government the purchase of 1.5 million doses at a negotiable price.

Belgium rejected it for two reasons. The first is legal because the European mechanism prevents you from trading yourself. The second is due to the fact that only vaccines produced in European factories or in third countries which have been inspected and authorized by the European Medicines Agency can be marketed in Europe. And the factories at the Serum Institute never have been.

False dosages and uncontrollable prices

The European Commission’s Director General for Health, the Italian Sandra Gallina – who has negotiated contracts with pharmaceutical companies with officials from various European governments and also on behalf of the European Commission the trade agreement to be ratified between the European Union and Mercosur – told a group of MEPs that the European Commission had detected two phenomena. The first is that there a false dose market which is already the subject of an investigation by the police and judicial authorities and the European Anti-Fraud Office.

The other phenomenon is more complex and agrees with the admission of the Belgian authorities. According to Gallina, “there are also real doses offered. It seems that there is a certain parallel market of sellers who offer doses of companies with which the Union has negotiated ”. These doses are sold up to four times more expensive.

The European Commission does not want to appear selfish because it seeks to keep all vaccines. According to their data, between December 1 and March 25, 77 million doses were exported to the rest of the world, from European factories, which went to 33 countries. The UK is the main beneficiary with 21 million of the 31 million doses it has administered so far. Argentina is one of those nations.

The dispute between Brussels and AstraZeneca got completely out of hand when, early Wednesday, Italian authorities announced that, following confidential information from Brussels, they had found a consignment of 29 million doses of Astra Zeneca at a factory near Rome. that the company owned. had not communicated.

The pharmaceutical company said 13 million were to be sent to poor countries through the World Health Organization’s COVAX mechanism and 16 million for European governments.

The European Commission assured that this explanation was not “credible” and asked the company to explain why, while European governments are desperate for doses, it had stored 16 million doses it was supposed to. deliver to them someday.

The European Commission used four vaccines: AstraZeneca / Oxford, Pfizer / BioNTech, Moderna and Janssen. Janssen is not yet administered. Hungary also uses the Russian Sputnik-V, which has also just arrived in Slovakia. The Hungarians also bought Chinese vaccines.

Brussels, special

CB