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A warning from AstraZeneca that initial deliveries of its Europe-bound Covid-19 vaccines will be lower than expected has sparked new concerns about vaccination rollouts, with some countries planning a sharp drop in deliveries.
Friday’s announcement by the British pharmaceutical company followed another by Pfizer last week, which said it would delay shipping its vaccine for up to a month due to work at its main plant in Belgium.
The companies’ warnings are coupled with growing concern about new Covid-19 variants, particularly one that emerged in Britain and is more contagious than the original strain.
More than 692,000 virus deaths and nearly 32 million infections have now been recorded in Europe.
The EU has so far approved vaccines from Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, as well as from the American company Moderna.
It has not yet approved the vaccine from AstraZeneca and its partner the University of Oxford, but is expected to make a decision on Jan. 29.
AstraZeneca said in its statement that if EU approval is granted, “initial volumes will be lower than expected,” although the launch would not be delayed.
The company blamed “reduced yields at a manufacturing site within our European supply chain”.
It said it would at least provide the EU with “millions of doses” while ramping up production in February and March.
The announcement sparked “deep discontent” among EU member states, which “insisted on a precise delivery schedule,” said European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Stella Kyriakides.
‘Very, very bad news’
Austrian health commissioner Rudolf Anschober called it “very, very bad news” and said his country would receive just over half of the 650,000 AstraZeneca doses it had expected in February.
Lithuania said it expected an 80 percent reduction in AstraZeneca doses in the first quarter.
Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin said: “It certainly has the potential to impact the wider vaccination program … It will disrupt our plans.”
However, some government officials tried to reassure residents of their country, who are tired and battered by months of the pandemic and already tense about the slow rollout of vaccinations.
“We have new vaccines on the way. We have Pfizer, which is increasing its production capacity,” the French minister-delegate responsible for the industry 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 contracted more than two billion vaccine doses for a total population of 450 million.
The AstraZeneca vaccine has the advantage of being cheaper to manufacture than its competitors and also easier to store and transport.
‘Disappointment’
German Health Minister Jens Spahn also tried to downplay the effect of the announcement, saying that following the expected approval of the shot in a week’s time, “there will be AstraZeneca deliveries in February”.
“How much, we still have to clarify with AstraZeneca and the European Union in the coming days,” he said.
Swedish national vaccination coordinator Richard Bergstrom said he expects his country to receive about 700,000 doses in the first month after the vaccine is approved, compared to one million initially expected.
Norway, which is not a member of the EU but does follow decisions by the bloc’s drug regulator, expressed “disappointment”.
The country’s FHI health authority now plans to receive just 200,000 AstraZeneca doses by February – far less than the 1.12 million initially expected.
Meanwhile, Pfizer’s postponement announced last week continued to be criticized.
Pfizer said on Jan. 15 that modifications to the Puurs plant were needed to increase vaccine production capacity from mid-February.
“We believe Pfizer is currently to blame,” Domenico Arcuri, Italy’s special commissioner for the pandemic, said Saturday in La Stampa newspaper, confirming that the country intends to take legal action against the company.
“The 20 percent reduction in Pfizer vaccine supplies is not an estimate, but a sad certainty,” he said, adding that the health of the Italians was not “negotiable.”
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said in a Facebook post on Saturday that any delays in the supply of vaccines amount to serious violations of contractual agreements and cause “massive damage” to Italy and other European countries.
French State Secretary for European Affairs Clément Beaune on Friday called on Pfizer to “fulfill his obligations”.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)