A fight between the European Union and the United Kingdom over the supply of vaccines is demonstrating how ensuring national access to doses can lead to conflict among US allies and emphasizing the vulnerability of successful Covid-19 vaccine launches to breaking chains international supply chains.
Tensions have been mounting for months between the EU, where governments stumbled on their vaccine campaigns, and the UK, which left the bloc last year. The UK has applied at least one injection of the Covid-19 vaccine to more than 40% of its population in one of the fastest inoculation implementations in the world.
This week, senior officials from the EU and the UK are in talks to try to prevent a further escalation of a dispute over the supply of vaccines from a Dutch factory that, according to officials, could turn into mutual export and vaccine supply bans between the two countries. two sides.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called EU leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, this weekend and “reiterated the importance of countries not placing restrictions on vaccine exports,” according with a UK spokeswoman.
The Dutch factory is a manufacturing site for the vaccine developed in the United Kingdom by AstraZeneca PLC and the University of Oxford, from which the United Kingdom and the EU hoped to obtain vaccines.