Photographer: Dhiraj Singh / Bloomberg
Photographer: Dhiraj Singh / Bloomberg
Chancellor Angela Merkel will hold crisis talks on Monday with pharmaceutical directors, German regional leaders and European Commission officials in an attempt to speed up the effort to vaccinate the continent’s stutter.
The video call this afternoon in Berlin comes after Ursula von der Leyen, chairman of the commission, announced this AstraZeneca Plc will deliver an additional 9 million doses of vaccine to the European Union in the first quarter. The EU has been embroiled in a bitter dispute with the drug manufacturer, as AstraZeneca said it was reducing the number of photos delivered to the block due to production problems.
Von der Leyen said late on Sunday on Twitter that the Anglo-Swedish drug maker would start deliveries a week earlier than scheduled and expand production. The additional doses would bring the total to 40 million, just about half of what the EU had expected from Astra by March.
Separated, Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE said on Monday that it would produce another 75 million doses of vaccine for the EU in the second quarter, as previously reported. The two companies have “returned to the original schedule of vaccine dose deliveries” to the EU following changes to a facility in Puurs, Belgium, BioNTech said.
“We are now in talks with additional qualified partners on potential new agreements” to further enhance the capacity of our European production network, said Sierk Poetting, Chief Financial Officer of BioNTech, in an email.
The EU is chasing the vaccine race
Cumulative doses administered to 100 people
Source: Data collected by Bloomberg
Read more: Faced with a vaccination emergency, the EU has made an enemy of all
AstraZeneca launched a crisis on January 22 when it said that the problems of a factory in Belgium mean that deliveries to the EU in this quarter will be significantly reduced. As a result, the bloc, which has come under fire due to the slow launch of national vaccination programs, said it will start restricting the export of vaccines if drug manufacturers fail to meet delivery targets.
The episode turned into a game of blame that put the 27-nation EU ahead of the pharmaceutical industry and sparked fears that a wave of vaccine nationalism could hamper efforts to combat the pandemic. The bloc’s hesitant vaccination program and its efforts to correct early mistakes have drawn criticism from many parties, including companies such as AstraZeneca, that it must fight the Covid crisis.
Export borders could disrupt vaccine supply chains, while billions wait to be inoculated before the spread of mutations makes the virus less vulnerable to available photos.
“We want 70% of the adult population to be vaccinated by the end of the summer,” von der Leyen said in an interview Sunday with German broadcaster ZDF. She added that deliveries are expected to increase significantly in the second quarter, when Johnson & Johnson and other pharmaceutical companies overcome early hurdles. An Astra spokesman declined to comment on the additional deliveries.
Astra CEO Pascal Soriot said last week that the company was trying to supply more supplies around the world to increase deliveries to the EU, adding that “we are working 24/7 to increase this capacity”.
To date, the 27 EU governments have administered only 2.8 doses of vaccine per 100 people, well behind the 14.2 doses in the UK and 9.7 in the US. over extended orders to stay at home.
The EU drug regulator removed the Covid-19 vaccine from AstraZeneca and Oxford University on Friday. It will be the third vaccine available in the EU after photos from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna Inc., potentially reducing the lack of photos as the EU follows the UK and the US in vaccinations.
In the ZDF interview, Von der Leyen said he spoke with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who said both Astra plants would be delivered to Europe. “Our enemy is the virus and the pharmaceutical industry is part of the solution,” she said.
Better prepared
Von der Leyen made a video call on Sunday with CEOs of pharmaceutical companies, including AstraZeneca and Moderna, to discuss how vaccines could be implemented, manufactured and approved more quickly in the future.
“The pandemic has shown that production capacity is a limiting factor. It is essential that we address these challenges, “the commission said in a statement after the appeal. He added that “the emergence of concerns raises the imminent threat of reduced efficacy of recently approved vaccines”.
Sunday’s discussion focused on the EU’s long-term health strategy and preparation. Inspired by early stumbling blocks in reducing the spread of coronavirus last year, the impetus for a common approach aims to protect against a mix of national responses to any future health scares.
The meeting also included directors from BioNTech, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, CureVac NV and Sanofi, according to the statement.
– With the assistance of Raymond Colitt, Frank Connelly and Nikos Chrysoloras