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The fate of 29 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine in Italy sparked criticism and recriminations on Wednesday as the EU warned the company was far from meeting its latest supply target.
The European Commission has asked AstraZeneca to explain the origin and intended destination of a stock identified by Italian authorities at the Anagni finishing plant, while some EU officials have asked whether the active ingredients contained in the doses came from a Dutch installation not yet authorized to supply to the block.
AstraZeneca said it was “incorrect” to describe it as stock, adding that doses wait until “quality control” processes are completed before being released.
About 13 million doses were intended for the international Covax program which is distributed mainly to poor and middle-income countries. These doses were made with a vaccine drug substance made outside the EU, the company said.
The remaining 16 million jabs were due to be shipped to EU countries, with nearly 10 million doses set to be delivered in the last week of March, and the rest in April, he added. “The vaccine manufacturing process is very complex and time consuming. In particular, vaccine doses should await approval from quality control after filling the vials. “
Distrust of vaccine doses at the plant near Rome highlights the almost complete breakdown in relations between the EU and AstraZeneca, whose low-cost coup was supposed to be the cornerstone of the vaccination campaign in difficulty of the block.
“Europe doesn’t want to be a useful idiot in all of this,” said an official from France, who has been at the forefront of a campaign for tighter vaccine export controls launched by the commission. .
Valdis Dombrovskis, EU trade commissioner, said on Wednesday that AstraZeneca was far from delivering even a quarter of the maximum doses of 120 million initially targeted at the end of March in the company’s contract with the commission Last year.
“They promise to be able to administer 30 million doses, but they are not even close to that figure so far,” he told reporters.
AstraZeneca says it has made “every effort”, as required by the contract, to meet the EU delivery schedule, adding that the schedule has been hit by low product yields at a factory in Belgium.
Italian authorities have identified the 29 million doses after the commission ordered an inspection of the plant on Saturday, the Italian government said.
Some EU officials suspect that part of the vaccine drug substance used to make the doses could come from a well-studied factory in the Netherlands hired to make the active ingredients of AstraZeneca. The Halix factory has not been able to deliver to the EU because it does not have the authorization from the European Medicines Agency. The company insisted the approval process was “on track”, but the committee and representatives of EU member states questioned why it was not already completed.
In its statement, AstraZeneca did not clarify the source of the drug substance in the EU-linked 16m doses to Anagni.
The supply to the Halix plant is at the center of a dispute between the EU and the UK, who both want a part of the plant’s output. The European bloc refused, stressing that no vaccine has ever been shipped from Britain’s AstraZeneca factories to help alleviate shortages in the rest of Europe.
EU member states, whose Covid-19 vaccination programs have been overtaken by those of the UK and US, are particularly concerned about a public backlash as European factories have exported millions of doses to foreign markets.
Additional reporting by Leila Abboud in Paris
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