Deputy Chief Nurse Katie McIntosh administers the first of two Pfizer / BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine shots to Vivien McKay Clinical Nurse Manager at Western General Hospital, on the first day of the largest immunization program in British history, in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK 8 December 2020.
Andrew Milligan | Reuters
LONDON – The UK government is facing the question of whether the country is on the verge of a shortage of coronavirus vaccine supply, a factor that could undermine its so far successful immunization program.
“We have less supply in the coming weeks than we might have hoped, but we expect it to increase again later,” Housing Minister Robert Jenrick told the BBC on Thursday.
“The introduction of the vaccine will be a little slower than we hoped, but no slower than the target,” he said. “We have every reason to believe that the supply will increase in the months of May, June and July.”
Jenrick later told Sky News that the government “is sourcing vaccines from all over the world and we are having some problems from time to time and that has led to this problem, with some supply coming in the coming weeks.”
Jenrick’s comments come amid a wave of reports in the UK media that the UK rollout is on the verge of some turbulence. It is well known that a delivery of millions of doses of the Oxford AstraZeneca shot, produced by the Serum Institute of India, can be delayed for four weeks.
However, Jenrick declined to comment on specific contracts. CNBC has reached out to the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, for comment on the reports, but has not yet received a response.
Ten million doses of the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine were expected to come from the SII, Reuters reported in early March. In total, the UK has ordered 100 million doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, most of which comes from the UK.
However, Britain is also facing potential supply disruptions if the EU goes ahead with a proposal to refuse exports of vaccines made in the bloc while its own program lags behind. The delivery of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine, which the UK also uses in its vaccination program, comes from Belgium.
Since its launch in December, the UK health service has overseen the vaccination of more than 25 million people with a first dose of the vaccine. More than 1.7 million people have now had a second dose of the dual vaccines currently used in the UK, government data shows.
‘Still on track’
The National Health Service had reportedly already warned of a reduction in supply to England “in a letter to local health organizations in April,” the BBC said.
But the government has said it is still on track to offer all over 50s a first dose of the vaccine by April 15 and all adults in the UK a first injection by the end of July.
“The vaccination program will continue in the coming weeks and more people will continue to receive first and second doses,” a spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Care said in a statement Wednesday evening.
“As has been the case since the inception of the program, the number of vaccinations performed over time will vary depending on supply.”
‘Big problem’
Global health experts have long warned that vaccines, their supply and distribution, would be an area ripe for disagreement between countries and regions.
Dr. Margaret Harris, a spokesperson for the World Health Organization, told CNBC on Thursday that the public health authority knew from the start of the pandemic that vaccine distribution would be a “major problem.”
“In previous outbreaks, that’s exactly what happened. Some groups and countries have had good access (to vaccines) and even excessive access, while many countries had nothing left. We saw this during the 2009 flu pandemic,” she said. to CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe.”
“We really encourage manufacturers to make arrangements to allow for more production around the world to really increase supply,” she said.
The UK’s vaccination program has been her rescue after the pandemic that hit the country hard. According to Johns Hopkins University, the UK has the fifth highest number of cases in the world, with more than 4.2 million infections reported and more than 126,000 deaths to date.