Rome, Italy.
The discovery of Italy of a reserve of 29 million doses from vaccine of AstraZeneca against him covid-19 on Wednesday fueled distrust in the EU and led to a denial by the lab about the fate of drugs.
The doses were identified by officials Italians during the inspection of a packaging factory in Anagni, near Rome.
AstraZeneca is at the center of a tumultuous controversy over significant delivery delays employed in the EU.
The announcement of this discovery, reported by Italian outlet and then confirmed by European fonts, became known on the same day that the EU decided to drastically strengthen its control mechanism vaccine exports.
Under strong pressure, the lab made sure that 29 million stored doses were waiting a “QA”.
Moreover, he noted, 16 million doses were allocated to EU countries and 13 million would be allocated to the international fund COVAX, support for low-income countries.
“Exports outside COVAX countries are not currently planned,” a spokesman for AstraZeneca. “It simply came to our notice then 10 million doses to EU countries in the last week of March, the rest in April, “he added.
Simultaneously, a government source from UK denied that any of the doses stored in Italy would be destined London, and an Italian government official said that “they seemed destined Belgium”, a country that acts as a platform for distribution vaccines.
AstraZeneca it produces its vaccines in the EU in two factories in Belgium and the Netherlands, while the factory in Italy handles bottling.
See: Two soldiers die after being vaccinated with AstraZeneca
The inspection of the Italian site in Anagni had been requested by the European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, and the EU will now check who these vaccines were intended for, a European official told AFP.
“It simply came to our notice then AstraZeneca had more production capacity in Europe of the one that had been registered, “he observed.
AstraZeneca he had initially promised 120 million doses to EU countries in the first quarter, but later acknowledged that it could provide only 30 million.