BRUSSELS (Reuters) – AstraZeneca Plc informed European Union officials on Friday that it would reduce deliveries of its COVID-19 vaccine to the block by 60% to 31 million doses in the first quarter of the year due to manufacturing issues, said a high official. Reuters.
The decline is another blow to Europe’s COVID-19 vaccination drive after Pfizer Inc and partner BioNTech SE delayed delivery of their vaccine to the bloc this week, saying the move was necessary due to work to ramp up production.
AstraZeneca would deliver about 80 million doses to the 27 EU countries by the end of March, the official involved in the talks said.
The official added that AstraZeneca planned to start deliveries to the EU from February 15, in accordance with the original plans.
The company confirmed the drop in deliveries without providing specific details on the size of the shortage.
“Initial volumes will be lower than initially expected due to lower revenues at a manufacturing site within our European supply chain,” an AstraZeneca spokesperson said in a written statement.
“We will deliver tens of millions of doses to the European Union in February and March as we continue to increase production volumes,” he said of the vaccine developed in partnership with Oxford University.
The UK-based drug company also agreed to deliver more than 80 million doses in the second quarter. On Friday, the EU official, speaking under condition of anonymity, said the company was unable to provide updated delivery targets for the April-June period due to manufacturing issues.
AstraZeneca told EU officials at a meeting that the cut was due to manufacturing problems at a vaccine plant in Belgium run by its partner Novasep, the EU official said. Novasep was not immediately available for comment.
EU governments “expressed deep dissatisfaction with this,” EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said on Twitter after the announcement.
The EU drug regulator is due to decide on the approval of the AstraZeneca vaccine on January 29. It has already received an emergency permit in Great Britain.
The EU has struck a deal to purchase at least 300 million doses of AstraZeneca, with an option for an additional 100 million, as part of the company’s global commitments to deliver more than 3 billion doses.
Reporting by Francesco Guarascio in Brussels; additional reporting by Ludwig Burger in Frankfurt; Editing by Chris Reese and Bill Berkrot