A vial of the Oxford University / AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is seen at the Lochee Health Center in Dundee, Scotland, UK on January 4, 2021.
Andy Buchanan | Swimming pool | Reuters
The European Covid-19 vaccination campaign took another hit on Friday when AstraZeneca said initial deliveries to the region were lagging behind target volumes due to a production outage.
“Initial volumes will be lower than initially expected due to lower revenues at a manufacturing site within our European supply chain,” a company spokesperson said in a written statement, declining to provide details.
The delay affects a European immunization campaign already hampered by a temporary shortage in the supply chain of vaccine developers Pfizer and BioNTech, which are redesigning a site in Belgium to boost output.
The European Commission said Astra had notified the EU’s vaccination board of a change to its delivery schedule and that the Commission was at work to find out more.
Although BioNTech’s product, as well as a vaccine made by US biotech company Moderna, has already been marketed after obtaining regulatory approval, an EU decision on Astra’s approval of the substance is expected in late January.
“We will deliver tens of millions of doses to the European Union in February and March as we continue to increase production volumes,” said the British drug company, which is partnering with Oxford University. The spokesperson would not give the initial volume target.
The EU has struck a deal to purchase at least 300 million doses of Astra, with an option for an additional 100 million, as part of the company’s global pledges to deliver more than 3 billion doses.
Austrian Health Minister Rudolf Anschober warned AstraZeneca that any delay would be “absolutely unacceptable,” although he stopped confirming reports in Austrian media that the company had told the country it could only take 600,000 doses of vaccine in the first quarter. instead of the 2 million. originally planned.
“Agreed delivery amounts must be adhered to,” Anschober said in a statement after reports from the Kurier newspaper and the APA national news agency, among others.
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said on Monday that he and his colleagues from Denmark and Greece would put pressure on the European Medicines Agency to quickly approve AstraZeneca’s vaccine. The Baltic states and the Czech Republic have joined that effort.