Italy sues Pfizer for delaying delivery of …

he Italian government announced that in the next few days will take legal action against the American pharmacist Pfizer for the delay in delivery of coronavirus vaccines which delays the vaccination campaign in the European country.

“The protection of the health of Italian citizens is not negotiated,” warned Domenico Arcuri, the Italian special commissioner for the pandemic, when communicating the government’s decision.

“You cannot slow down the vaccination campaign, let alone the administration of the second dose of the vaccine after the first has been received,” he added.

Last Friday, Pfizer and its partner, Germany’s BioNTech, said they were unable to deliver the agreed doses because demand for the vaccines greatly exceeded their production capacity.

This sparked the anger of various European governments because this breach of the contract of the pharmaceutical company arrives in the midst of a new wave of coronavirus. Countries are also criticized for slowness of vaccination campaigns.

The American laboratory assured to have launched a plan to limit the delivery times of its vaccine and reduce them to one week instead of three or four, as feared in Europe. Acuri noted that Pfizer communicated to Italy that delivery times will be longer.

This week, Italy received 29% less (165 thousand doses) of the planned vaccines. This raises concerns about giving the second dose to the 1.2 million people who received the first, most of them health workers.

Pfizer has warned Italy that “not only will it not deliver the doses scheduled for this week, but it has unilaterally and without notice decided that it will not deliver the doses for next week and will also reduce their number slightly. “, explained Arcuri, who demands that the prescribed doses be delivered.

Italy began its vaccination campaign on December 27. According to official figures, the country has already received 1,511,835 doses of the drug from Pfizer-BioNTech and 46,800 more from Moderna.