BRUSSELS – The European Union exported 25 million doses of coronavirus vaccines produced in its territory last month to 31 countries around the world, with Britain and Canada the main destinations, just when the bloc saw its own supply be cut drastically by pharmaceutical companies, slowing vaccination efforts and fueling a political crisis at home.
The bloc – whose 27 nations are home to 450 million people – was criticized last week when Italy used an export control mechanism to block a small shipment of vaccines to Australia. The measure was criticized as protectionist and in sharp contrast to the European Union’s mantra of free markets and global solidarity in the face of the pandemic.
The issue of vaccine production and exports has also created a fierce dispute between the European Union and Britain, a member who recently left, amid accusations that the bloc wants to deprive the country of doses of vaccines in spite, in part because Britain is doing much better with its launch.
The tensions culminated in a diplomatic discussion on Wednesday after a senior EU official accused the United States and Britain of bringing a “total ban” on exports – an accusation the British government has vehemently denied.
In practical terms, with or without a ban, Britain is not exporting vaccines authorized for use at home, and the country said it would be prepared to give overdoses to neighboring Ireland, although only after it was completed with its vaccination efforts in House.
The United States has also maintained doses, in part through a war mechanism known as the Defense Production Act, which gives the federal government greater control over industrial production. President Biden promised last week that all adults in America would have at least one dose of vaccine offered to them by May.
But information made public for the first time, recorded in detailed internal documents seen by The New York Times, shows that the European Union, far from being protectionist, is in fact a vaccine exporting power.
Of the 25 million doses of vaccines manufactured at EU-based facilities that were exported between February 1 (when the export mechanism came into effect) and March 1, more than eight million doses went to Britain.
And while the United States kept the doses to itself, the EU dispatched 651,000 vaccines to the United States last month and made vaccines that immunized its neighbors: the second largest recipient of vaccines made in the EU was Canada, which received more than three million of doses in the last month, while the fourth largest was Mexico, which received almost 2.5 million doses of vaccines produced in the bloc.
The disclosure of this data has been hotly debated in the corridors of power in the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, which is at the heart of vaccine procurement and has suffered the biggest political blow to its not-so-surprising implementation.
On the one hand, several senior EU officials said, revealing the immense export efforts that are keeping countries around the world vaccinated and helping to restart the world economy would help restore Europe’s reputation. On the other hand, I would be outraged at European citizens who wait for their shots while watching Americans, British, Israelis and others rush past them to resume public life, health and economic activity.
As it stands, almost 58% of Israelis received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine. The figure is 33 percent for people in Britain, 18 percent for the United States and 6.5 percent for people in the European Union, show data collected by OurWorldInData.
The bloc was weeks behind the United States and Britain in closing deals with pharmaceutical companies last year, but secured a broad portfolio of vaccines on favorable terms on behalf of its members. This guaranteed them relatively quick access to immunization that most would not have dreamed of if they were acting alone.
But weeks after the start of its implementation in late December, the bloc began to suffer supply shocks. First, Pfizer said it was cutting deliveries to update its facilities. Then AstraZeneca told the bloc that it would deliver only 31 million of the 80 million doses promised in the first quarter of this year.
Moderna, whose vaccine was also approved for use by the bloc, also had minor supply problems. Many EU countries have also done a terrible job of supplying the vaccines they have to their citizens due to poor organization and logistics.
Implementation in the bloc has been so bad that member states have been tempted by black market offers for extra doses, and several are using unauthorized vaccines, including Russia’s Sputnik V, which is still under review for use in the bloc.
Hopes that these problems could be mitigated in the second quarter of this year depend in large part on the increased supply of AstraZeneca and a robust delivery plan by Johnson & Johnson, whose Covid-19 vaccine should be authorized by the EU regulator on Thursday. -market.
However, there are concerns that Johnson & Johnson may also be reducing the offer for the bloc, leading to a request by the bloc to the United States government for a loan of 10 million doses. US and European Union officials said the request was denied.
Noah Weiland contributed reporting from Washington.