An ampoule of the Oxford University / AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is seen at Lochee Health Center in Dundee, Scotland, UK, January 4, 2021.
Andy Buchanan | Swimming pool | Reuters
The European vaccination campaign Covid-19 received another blow on Friday, when AstraZeneca said that the initial deliveries in the region will be lower than the targeted volumes due to a production error.
“Initial volumes will be lower than originally anticipated due to low yields at a factory in our European supply chain,” a company spokesman said in a written statement, refusing to provide details.
The landslide hits a European immunization campaign that has already been hampered by a temporary shortage in the supply chain of vaccine developers Pfizer and BioNTech, which is reorganizing a site in Belgium to increase production.
The EU Commission said Astra had informed the EU Vaccination Board of a change to its delivery schedule and that the Commission was working to find out more.
While the BioNTech product, as well as a vaccine produced by the American biotechnology company Moderna, have already been launched after obtaining regulatory approval, an EU decision on the regulatory approval of the compound Astra is expected by the end of January.
“We will supply tens of millions of doses in February and March to the European Union, while we continue to increase the volume of production,” said the British doctor, who is a partner with Oxford University. The spokesperson did not provide the original volume target.
The EU has reached an agreement to purchase at least 300 million doses from Astra, with an option for another 100 million, part of the company’s global commitments to deliver more than 3 billion doses.
Austrian Health Minister Rudolf Anschober warned AstraZeneca that any delay would be “absolutely unacceptable”, although he stopped confirming reports in the Austrian media that the company had told the country it could deliver only 600,000 doses of vaccine in the first place. quarter and not the 2 million. originally planned.
“The agreed delivery amounts must be pasted,” Anschober said in a statement after media reports, including the Kurier newspaper and the national APA news agency.
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said on Monday that he and his counterparts in Denmark and Greece would put pressure on the European Medicines Agency to quickly approve the AstraZeneca vaccine. The Baltic States and the Czech Republic have joined this effort.