BERLIN (AP) – Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca has agreed to deliver 9 million additional doses of its coronavirus vaccine to the European Union in the first quarter, the executive arm of the block said Sunday.
The new target of 40 million doses by the end of March is only half of what the British-Swedish company originally intended, which sparked a fight between AstraZeneca and the EU last week.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Sunday after a phone call with seven vaccine manufacturers that AstraZeneca will also start deliveries a week ahead of schedule and expand its manufacturing capacity in Europe.
“Step forward with vaccines,” tweeted von der Leyen, who has come under great pressure in recent days about the handling of vaccine orders by the European Commission.
The EU is far behind Britain and the United States in terms of vaccinating its 450 million inhabitants against the virus. The slow roll-out is due to a series of national problems, as well as delayed authorization of the vaccines compared to elsewhere and an initial shortage of supply.
The announcement last week that AstraZeneca would initially deliver only 31 million doses to the 27 member states of the EU due to manufacturing issues sparked a fierce dispute between the two parties, with officials in Brussels saying they feared the company was treating the bloc unfairly by comparison with other customers. , such as the United Kingdom.
On Friday, hours after regulators approved the vaccine for use across the EU, the commission announced it was tightening the rules for the export of COVID-19 vaccines, sparking an angry reaction from Britain. The commission has since made it clear that the new measure will not lead to controls on shipments of vaccines produced in the 27-country bloc to the small area that is part of the United Kingdom bordering EU member Ireland.
Under the post-Brexit deal, EU products should still be able to travel unimpeded from the block to Northern Ireland.
EU member states last year praised the bloc’s executive for signing numerous deals with vaccine manufacturers, saying the joint purchase with a combined market weight of the entire bloc had ensured a fair distribution for all 27 countries at good prices. .
In a statement, the European Commission said it plans to create a specialized body to improve the bloc’s response to health emergencies and provide “a more structured approach to pandemic preparedness.”
As part of the effort, along with the industry, the EU said it will “fund vaccine design and development and scale up production in the short and medium term, as well as to address the variants of COVID-19.”
“The pandemic made it clear that production capacity is a limiting factor,” he said. “It is essential to address these challenges.”