AstraZeneca can be distributed in the EU by mid-February

LONDON – AstraZeneca’s covid-19 vaccine could be available across the European Union in mid-February, an EU official said on Tuesday after the pharmaceutical company applied for approval in the 27-member distribution.

The European Medicines Agency announced on Tuesday that it is now studying the results of the AstraZeneca and Oxford University vaccine under an “accelerated timeline” and can release its opinion on 29 January. This push has been rolling out in the UK since early. January.

“If we were to obtain a successful authorization for the AstraZeneca contract … we hope that AstraZeneca would be able to deliver the first delivery two weeks after the authorization,” said Sandra Gallina, Director-General for Health and Food Safety at the European Commission. said lawmakers Tuesday morning.

“And they think I would say two deliveries a month, but it’s all in the making. They need to discuss it with the member states,” she added.

The EU has a contract with AstraZeneca to buy up to 400 million doses of its vaccine. One of its advantages is that it can be stored in normal refrigerators, rather than at very low temperatures, like some of its competitors. However, there is also criticism of this sting after the manufacturers admitted a bug in late November, which was then corrected.

This is the third vaccine approved in the EU to contain the pandemic. The bloc has vaccinated citizens with the Pfizer / BioNTech sting since the end of December and the Moderna vaccine received a green light for distribution last week.

Gallina told lawmakers that the first Moderna jabs were distributed across member states on Monday.

Nevertheless, the European Commission is blamed for what critics describe as a slow action of coronavirus vaccines. Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin sent a letter to the commission on Monday, urging the institution to speed up the distribution of the vaccines.

“This again gives me a mystery about the debate over why we did not buy more,” said Gallina, who was the chief negotiator with the pharmaceutical companies.

“We bought as much as it was offered,” she explained.

“It’s not just quantities you are negotiating, you are also negotiating a specific quantity for that moment, so we have all the quantities that can be produced,” Gallina added.

The speed of vaccination varied in part in the 27 countries due to the red tape and lack of readiness by some governments.

According to Gallina, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control will provide figures on how many citizens have been vaccinated twice a week across the EU starting next week.

AstraZeneca’s shares fell in early trading in Europe.