BERLIN (AP) – Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca has agreed to supply an additional 9 million doses of its coronavirus vaccine to the European Union during the first quarter, the bloc’s executive arm said on Sunday.
The new target of 40 million doses at the end of March is still only half of what the initial target of the British-Swedish company before announcing a deficit due to production problems, provoking a dispute between AstraZeneca and the EU last week.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Sunday after a call with seven vaccine manufacturers that AstraZeneca will also start delivering a week ahead of schedule and expand its manufacturing capacity in Europe.
“Step forward in vaccines,” tweeted Von der Leyen, who has been under intense pressure on the management of European Commission vaccine orders in recent days.
The EU is far behind Britain and the United States in vaccinating its population of 450 million people against the virus. Slow deployment has been attributed to a number of national problems, as well as slower vaccine clearance and an initial shortage of supply.
AstraZeneca’s announcement last week that it would initially supply only 31 million doses to the 27 EU member states due to production problems sparked a fierce dispute between the two sides, with officials in Brussels saying that they feared the company would treat the blog unfairly. compared to other customers, such as the UK.
On Friday, hours after regulators authorized the vaccine for use across the EU, the commission said it would tighten export rules of coronavirus vaccines, provoking a rabid response from Britain. Since then, the commission has made it clear that the new measure will not limit shipments of vaccines produced to the 27-nation bloc in Northern Ireland, a territory in the United Kingdom to which unhindered cross-border access to the Republic of Ireland is guaranteed. Ireland under the post-Brexit agreement between Britain and the EU.
EU member states praised the bloc’s executive branch last year for signing numerous agreements with vaccine manufacturers, saying joint buying through the combined market share of the entire bloc had ensured a fair distribution for vaccines. 27 countries at a good price.
Since then, the mood of many EU citizens towards Brussels has worsened, as countries outside the bloc are advancing in the race to vaccinate their populations.
The British government has not been shy in promoting its relative success in vaccines, which has helped to distract the fact that the country remains at the top of the table of deaths in Europe.
Official figures show that 598,389 shots were fired across the UK on Saturday, more than six times the number Germany hit on Friday, the last day for which figures were available.
So far, Germany has given at least a dose to 2.2% of its population. Britain has done the same with 13.2% of its citizens.
In response, Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday convened state governors to discuss what German media describe as a “vaccination debacle.” ”
Von der Leyen, who was Germany’s defense minister before taking office in Brussels, insisted the EU “made good progress”.
“Of course, we are currently in a difficult phase,” he told German public broadcaster ZDF, but added that in the second quarter there will be more vaccines as regulators approve additional formulas and production capacity remains online.
Pfizer, which developed the first widely tested and approved coronavirus vaccine alongside German firm BioNTech, has said it expects to increase global production this year from 1.3 million doses to 2 billion doses. Tens of millions of them will probably go to the EU.
In a statement, the European Commission said it plans to create a specialized body to improve the bloc’s response to health emergencies and “offer a more structured approach to pandemic preparedness.”
As part of the effort, together with the industry, the EU said it would “fund vaccine design and development and increase manufacturing in the short and medium term, and also target variants of COVID-19”.
“The pandemic highlighted that manufacturing capabilities are a limiting factor,” he said. “It is essential to address these challenges.”
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