BERLIN (AP) – Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca has agreed to deliver an additional 9 million doses of its coronavirus vaccine to the European Union in the first quarter, the bloc’s executive arm said on Sunday.
The new target of 40 million doses by the end of March is still only half of the initial goal of the British-Swedish company, triggering a spit between AstraZeneca and the EU last week.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Sunday, following a call with seven vaccine manufacturers, that AstraZeneca would also start deliveries a week earlier than scheduled and expand its production capacity in Europe.
“Moving forward with vaccines,” Von der Leyen wrote on Twitter, under intense pressure from the European Commission’s management of vaccination orders in recent days.
The EU is far from the UK and the United States in terms of vaccination against the virus of its population of 450 million. The slow launch has been blamed on a number of national problems, as well as the delayed authorization of vaccines compared to other parts and an initial supply shortage.
Last week’s announcement that AstraZeneca would initially deliver only 31 million doses to the 27 EU member states due to production problems sparked a heated dispute between the two sides, with Brussels officials saying they feared the company would treat the bloc properly. unfair compared to other customers, such as the United Kingdom.
On Friday, just hours after regulators authorized the use of the vaccine across the EU, the commission said it was tightening rules on COVID-19 vaccine exports, prompting an angry response from the UK. The Commission has since stated that the new measure will not trigger controls on shipments of vaccines produced in the 27-nation bloc to the small territory that is part of the United Kingdom, which borders the EU and Ireland.
Under the post-Brexit agreement, EU products should be able to travel seamlessly from the bloc to Northern Ireland.
EU member states praised the bloc’s executive power last year for signing numerous agreements with vaccine manufacturers, saying the joint acquisition using the combined market weight of the whole bloc ensured a fair distribution for all 27 countries at good prices. .
In a statement, the European Commission said it intends to set up a specialized body to improve the bloc’s response to health emergencies and “provide a more structured approach to pandemic preparedness”.
As part of the effort, together with industry, the EU said it would “fund the design and development of vaccines and expand production in the short and medium term and also target COVID-19 variants”.
“The pandemic has shown that manufacturing capacity is a limiting factor,” he said. “It is essential that we address these challenges.”