Photographer: Dhiraj Singh / Bloomberg
Photographer: Dhiraj Singh / Bloomberg
Chancellor Angela Merkel will hold crisis talks on Monday with pharmaceutical executives, German regional leaders and European Commission officials to try to speed up the continent’s vaccination push stuttering.
This afternoon’s video call in Berlin comes after the commission’s chairwoman Ursula von der Leyen announced it. AstraZeneca Plc will deliver an additional 9 million doses of vaccine to the European Union during the first quarter. The EU has been locked in a bitter dispute with the drug maker since AstraZeneca said it was reducing the number of shots delivered to the block due to production issues.
Von der Leyen said on Sunday afternoon on Twitter that the Anglo-Swedish pharmacist would begin deliveries a week ahead of schedule and expand manufacturing. The additional doses would bring the total to 40 million, just about half of what the EU had expected from Astra by March.
Separately, Pfizer Inc. i BioNTech SE said Monday that, as noted above, it will produce another 75 million doses of its vaccine for the EU in the second quarter. The two companies are “returning to the original vaccine dose delivery schedule” in the EU following modifications to a facility in Puurs, Belgium, BioNTech said.
“We are now in talks with additional qualified partners on possible new agreements” to further increase the capacity of our European manufacturing network, said Sierk Poetting, chief financial officer of BioNTech, in an emailed statement.
The EU is chasing the vaccine race
Accumulated doses administered per 100 people
Source: Data collected by Bloomberg
Read more: In the face of a vaccine emergency, the EU became an enemy of everyone
AstraZeneca sparked a crisis on January 22 when it said problems at a plant in Belgium would mean that deliveries to the EU would be significantly reduced this quarter. As a result, the block, which came under fire due to the slow development of national vaccination programs, said it would begin restricting the export of vaccines if drug manufacturers do not meet delivery targets.
The episode has become a blatant guilt game that has pitted the EU of 27 countries against the strong pharmaceutical industry and sparked fears that a wave of vaccine nationalism could hamper efforts to fight the pandemic. The blog’s hesitant vaccination program and its effort to correct early mistakes have attracted criticism from many parties, including companies like AstraZeneca, which needs to fight the Covid crisis.
Export curbs could disrupt vaccine supply chains, as billions wait to be inoculated before the spread of mutations makes the virus less vulnerable to available traits.
“We want to vaccinate 70% of the adult population by the end of the summer,” von der Leyen said in an interview Sunday with German broadcaster ZDF. He added that supplies are expected to increase significantly in the second quarter when Johnson & Johnson and other pharmaceutical companies overcome the first hurdles. An Astra spokesman declined to comment on the additional deliveries.
Astra CEO Pascal Soriot said last week that the company was trying to get more supplies from around the world to increase deliveries to the EU, adding that “we are working 24/7 to increase that 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. for extended home stay orders.
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 the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna Inc., which could alleviate the shortage of gunfire as the EU tracks the UK and US on vaccinations.
In the ZDF interview, Von der Leyen said he spoke with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who said the two Astra production plants would be delivered to Europe. “Our enemy is the virus and the pharmaceutical industry is part of the solution,” he said.
Better prepared
Von der Leyen held a video call on Sunday with executives from pharmaceutical companies, including AstraZeneca and Moderna, to discuss how vaccines could be deployed, manufactured and approved more quickly in the future.
“The pandemic stressed that manufacturing capabilities are a limiting factor. It is essential to address these challenges, “the commission said in a statement after the call. It added that” the emergence of worrying variants poses the imminent threat of reducing the effectiveness of recently approved vaccines. “
Sunday’s debate focused on the EU’s long-term health strategy and preparedness. Inspired by the first setbacks in curbing the spread of coronavirus last year, the push for a common approach aims to protect itself against a mosaic of national responses to any future health scare.
BioNTech executives, Pfizer, were also included at the meeting. Johnson & Johnson, CureVac NV i Sanofi, according to the statement.
– With the assistance of Raymond Colitt, Frank Connelly and Nikos Chrysoloras