BERLIN (AP) – Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca has agreed to supply the European Union with 9 million additional doses of its coronavirus vaccine during the first quarter, the bloc’s executive arm said Sunday.
The new target of 40 million doses by the end of March is still only half of what the Swedish-British company originally intended, triggering a dispute between AstraZeneca and the EU last week.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said after calling with seven vaccine manufacturers on Sunday that AstraZeneca will also start deliveries a week ahead of schedule and expand its manufacturing capacity in Europe.
“Take a step forward in vaccines,” tweeted Von der Leyen, who has been under intense pressure on the European Commission’s treatment of vaccine orders in recent days.
The EU is far behind Britain and the United States in vaccinating its 450 million population against the virus. The slow implantation was attributed to a series of national problems, as well as to the delay in the authorization of vaccines in comparison to other places and to the initial shortage of supplies.
Last week’s announcement that AstraZeneca would initially supply only 31 million doses to the 27 EU member states due to production problems sparked a heated dispute between the two sides, with officials in Brussels saying they fear the company is treating the block. unfairly compared to other customers like the UK.
On Friday, hours after regulators authorized the use of the vaccine across the EU, the commission announced that it was tightening the rules on COVID-19 vaccine exports, prompting an angry response from Britain. Since then, the commission has made it clear that the new measure will not trigger controls on shipments of vaccines produced in the 27-country bloc to the small territory that forms part of the United Kingdom, which borders EU member Ireland.
According to the post-Brexit agreement, EU products must still be able to travel unhindered from the bloc to Northern Ireland.
EU member states praised the bloc’s executive arm last year for signing several agreements with vaccine manufacturers, saying that joint purchasing using the combined market weight of the entire bloc ensured fair distribution to all 27 countries at good prices .
In a statement, the European Commission said it plans to create a specialized body to improve the bloc’s response to health emergencies and “provide a more structured approach to pandemic preparedness”.
As part of the effort, together with the industry, the EU said it will “finance the design and development of vaccines and increase production in the short and medium term, and also target the variants of COVID-19”.
“The pandemic highlighted that manufacturing capabilities are a limiting factor,” said the document. “It is essential to face these challenges.”