Coronavirus: the European Union has announced that it is not renewing …

The European Commissioner for the Internal Market, the French Thierry Breton, announced this Sunday that the European Union (EU) has decided not to renew the contract with AstraZeneca laboratories for the supply of covid-19 vaccines from June.

The news comes a month after the European Commission took legal action against the pharmaceutical company for violating its delivery commitmentMember States for the contracted doses of their vaccine and for not having a “reliable” plan to ensure future disbursements. AstraZeneca was expected to deliver 180 million doses to European states in the first quarter of the year., to complete a total of 300 million during the period from December to June, but he only distributed 30 million.

Pharmaceutical delays hampered the bloc’s vaccination campaign, according to EU authorities, because initially it was assumed that the vaccine developed by the University of Oxford is reportedly leading the inoculation rollout in the first half of this year.

After repeated cuts in supply, the bloc changed its plans and now relies mainly on the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

In this sense, the President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, on Saturday advanced the approval of a new mega-contract with the multinational Pfizer to acquire up to 1.8 billion doses between 2021 and 2023.

The agreement includes 900 million guaranteed doses, with an additional purchase option for an additional 900 million, which represents a sufficient level of supply for the European population and leaves a considerable margin for sending doses to other countries.