BRUSSELS, Jan 22 (Reuters) – AstraZeneca told EU officials on Friday it would reduce deliveries of the COVID-19 vaccine to the block by between 60% and 31 million doses in the first quarter of the year due to production problems, a senior official told Reuters.
The company was expected to deliver about 80 million doses to the 27 EU countries by the end of March, the official involved in the talks said.
The company had also agreed to administer more than 80 million doses in the second quarter, but on Friday was unable to indicate delivery targets for the April-June period due to production problems, the official said.
The company said the cut was due to production problems at a vaccine factory in Belgium run by its partner Novasep, the official said. (Report by Francesco Guarascio Edited by Chris Reese)