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A warning from AstraZeneca that initial supplies of its Covid-19 vaccines to Europe will be lower than expected has raised new concerns about vaccine deployment, with some countries forecasting a sharp drop in deliveries.
Friday’s announcement by the British pharmaceutical company followed another last week by Pfizer, which said it would delay shipments of its vaccine for up to a month due to work at its key plant in Belgium.
With the business warnings comes growing concern about new variants of Covid-19, especially the one that has emerged in Britain and is more contagious than the original strain.
Europe has now recorded more than 692,000 deaths from viruses and nearly 32 million infections.
The EU has so far approved vaccines from Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech as well as the US company Moderna.
It has yet to approve the vaccine from AstraZeneca and its partner Oxford University, but is expected to make a decision by January 29.
AstraZeneca said in its statement that if EU approval is granted, “initial volumes will be lower than forecast”, although the start is not delayed.
The company blamed “reduced yields at a manufacturing site within our European supply chain”.
He said he would in any case provide the EU with “millions of doses” while increasing production in February and March.
The announcement sparked “deep discontent” from EU member states, who “insisted on a specific delivery schedule”, said EU Health and Food Safety Commissioner Stella Kyriakides.
“Very, very bad news”
Austrian health chief Rudolf Anschober called it “very, very bad news” and said his country would only receive just over half of the 650,000 doses of AstraZeneca in February. had anticipated.
Lithuania has said it expects an 80% reduction in AstraZeneca doses in the first quarter.
Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin said that “this certainly has the potential to impact the larger immunization program … It will disrupt our plans”.
Some government officials, however, sought to reassure the inhabitants of their country, tired and battered by months of the pandemic and already worried about the slow deployment of the vaccination.
“We have new vaccines on the way. We have Pfizer, which is increasing its production capacities,” French minister responsible for industry Agnès Pannier-Runacher told France Inter.
The EU had initially ordered up to 400 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
In total, the EU has secured contracts for more than two billion doses of vaccine for a total population of 450 million.
The AstraZeneca vaccine has the advantage of being cheaper to produce than that of its competitors and of being easier to store and transport.
‘Disappointment’
German Health Minister Jens Spahn also sought to downplay the effect of the announcement, saying that after the expected approval of the coup within a week, “there will be deliveries of AstraZeneca in February”.
“How much, we still need to clarify with AstraZeneca and the European Union in the days to come,” he said.
Sweden’s national immunization coordinator Richard Bergstrom has said he expects his country to receive around 700,000 doses in the first month after the vaccine is approved, up from a million originally planned.
Norway, which is not a member of the EU but follows decisions taken by the block drug regulator, has expressed “disappointment”.
The country’s FHI health authority now plans to receive just 200,000 doses of AstraZeneca in February – far less than the 1.12 million originally planned.
Meanwhile, Pfizer’s delay announced last week continues to draw criticism.
Pfizer said on Jan.15 that changes at its Puurs plant were needed to increase vaccine production capacity from mid-February.
“We believe Pfizer is at fault right now,” Italian pandemic special commissioner Domenico Arcuri told La Stampa newspaper on Saturday, confirming that the country planned to take the company to court.
“The 20 percent reduction in Pfizer vaccine supplies is not an estimate, but a sad certainty,” he said, adding that the health of Italians was not “negotiable”.
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said in a Facebook post on Saturday that any delay in vaccine supply constituted serious breaches of contractual agreements and caused “enormous damage” to Italy and other European countries.
French Secretary of State for European Affairs Clément Beaune on Friday called on Pfizer to “honor its commitments”.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
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