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A warning from AstraZeneca that the initial supply of Covid-19 vaccines to Europe will be less than expected has raised new concerns about the launch of vaccines, with some countries planning a sharp drop in deliveries.
Friday’s announcement by the British pharmaceutical company followed by another one last week by Pfizer, which said it would delay shipments of its vaccine for up to a month due to works at its factory in Belgium.
Company warnings raise concern about new Covid-19 variants, particularly one that emerged in Britain and is more infectious than the original strain.
Europe has recorded more than 692,000 virus deaths and almost 32 million infections.
So far, the EU has approved vaccines from Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, as well as from the American company Moderna.
It has not yet approved the vaccine for AstraZeneca and its partner, the University of Oxford, but is expected to make a decision by January 29.
AstraZeneca said in its statement that, if EU approval is granted, “the initial volumes will be less than expected”, although the start is not delayed.
The company blamed “reduced yields at a plant within our European supply chain”.
In any case, the agency said it would supply the EU with “millions of doses” while increasing production in February and March.
The announcement generated “deep dissatisfaction” on the part of EU member states, who “insisted on an accurate delivery schedule,” said European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Stella Kyriakides.
‘Very, very bad news’
Austrian health chief Rudolf Anschober called this “very, very bad news” and said his country would receive in February just over half of the 650,000 doses of AstraZeneca he had predicted.
Lithuania said it expects an 80% reduction in AstraZeneca doses in the first quarter.
Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin said that “it certainly has the potential to impact the broader vaccination program … It will hinder our plans.”
Some government officials, however, sought to reassure residents of their countries, who are tired and punished by months of pandemic and are already nervous about the slow implementation of vaccination.
“We have new vaccines on the way. We have Pfizer, which is increasing its production capacity,” French Industry Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher told France Inter.
The EU had initially ordered up to 400 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
In total, the EU has signed contracts for more than two billion doses of vaccines for a total population of 450 million.
The AstraZeneca vaccine has the advantage of being cheaper to produce than its competitors, in addition to being simpler to store and transport.
‘Disappointment’
German Health Minister Jens Spahn also sought to minimize the effect of the announcement, saying that after the expected approval of the jab in a week “there will be deliveries of AstraZeneca in February”.
“How much, we still have to clarify with AstraZeneca and the European Union in the coming days,” he said.
Sweden’s national vaccination coordinator, Richard Bergstrom, said he expected his country to receive about 700,000 doses in the first month after vaccine authorization, compared with one million initially forecast.
Norway, which is not a member of the EU, but follows the decisions of the bloc’s drug regulator, expressed “disappointment”.
The country’s FHI health authority now plans to receive just 200,000 doses of AstraZeneca in February – far less than the 1.12 million initially expected.
Meanwhile, the Pfizer delay announced last week continued to attract criticism.
Pfizer said on January 15 that modifications to its Puurs plant were needed to increase vaccine production capacity from mid-February.
“We believe Pfizer is at fault at the moment,” Domenico Arcuri, Italy’s special pandemic commissioner, told La Stampa newspaper on Saturday, confirming that the country plans to initiate legal action against the company.
“The 20 percent reduction in Pfizer’s supply of vaccines is not an estimate, but a sad certainty,” he said, adding that the health of Italians was not “negotiable”.
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said in a Facebook post on Saturday that any delay in the supply of vaccines represents a serious breach of contractual agreements and causes “huge damage” to Italy and other European countries.
French Secretary of State for European Affairs, Clément Beaune, asked Pfizer on Friday to “honor its commitments”.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)