Astra-Zeneca is still providing less coronavirus vaccine to the European Union
DrThe Covid vaccine supply threatens I am It also came below expectations in the second quarter. This became evident after the Swedish-British pharmaceutical company Astra-Zeneca (AZ) again announced a delivery failure at the weekend. Accordingly, the volume of delivery in the first quarter decreased again by ten million boxes behind the plans, which have already been revised downwards significantly. AZ is now planning a total of 30 million cans by the end of March.
Most importantly, the company – contrary to what was initially announced – will not be able to compensate for its failures in the second quarter, but it is only planning a total of 100 million boxes for the first half of the entire year. So far there has been talk of 220 million cans. In the contract with European Union Commission Starting in August, AZ promised to deliver the full order quantity of 300 million cans by the end of June to the best of its ability.
The AZ vaccine is by far cheaper than the one requested by the European Union. So some EU countries have mainly relied on it in the last year and have ordered less of the more expensive vaccines or none of the more expensive ones from Biontech / Pfizer and Moderna out of the total European unit. Meanwhile, it not only proved particularly effective but also delivered pretty much without any problems. Some countries purchased additional quantities of the remaining units of the two precious materials. As a result, the actual distribution of the vaccine among countries has increasingly deviated from the agreed quota based on population.
This unequal distribution is likely to be exacerbated by the difficulties of A to Z delivery. That is why those countries that have mainly adopted AZ are now protesting. Six countries – Austria, Croatia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Latvia – complained in a letter to the chair of the commission that the current ordering system would lead to more inequality through the summer. Ursula von der Leyen And the chairperson of the council is Charles Michel. That is why it was necessary to renegotiate the “Brussels” command policy (which had already been agreed upon by all member states).
More difficulties in production in Belgium
The direct cause of the frequent delivery problems from AZ appears to be the start-up difficulties of production at the contract manufacturer Thermo-Fisher plant in Belgium. Contrary to what was initially promised, the manufacturer cannot compensate for failures in deliveries from countries outside the European Union. The United States and India have imposed a de facto export ban. In Great Britain there are “contractual export barriers” to the European Union, Swedish vaccination coordinator Richard Bergstrom said on Swedish radio. The president of the EPP group in the European Parliament, Manfred Weber (CSU), slammed the company again over the weekend for delivery problems and called for a general ban on the export of AZ vaccines produced in the European Union.
The plant remains burdened with doubts about the tolerability of its pollen. On Sunday, the Irish Vaccination Committee also recommended suspending vaccinations with the AZ vaccine until reports from Norway of four cases of acute blood clots after checking the administration of the drug. According to Norwegian media reports, Italy, Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Luxembourg have also stopped vaccination from A to Z. However, the European Union Medicines Agency (EMA) held on to its assessment that the benefits of having an AZ vaccination were greater than the risks.
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