BERLIN (AP) – The pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca has agreed to deliver 9 million additional doses of the coronavirus vaccine to the European Union during the first quarter, the bloc’s executive said on Sunday.
The new target of 40 million doses by the end of March is still only half of what the British-Swedish company originally intended, which caused a flurry between AstraZeneca and the EU last week.
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said on Sunday after a call with seven vaccine manufacturers that AstraZeneca would also deliver a week earlier than planned and expand its manufacturing capacity in Europe.
“Step forward on vaccines,” tweeted Von der Leyen, who has come under tremendous pressure over the handling of European Commission vaccine orders in recent days.
The EU is far behind Britain and the United States in getting its 450 million population vaccinated against the virus. The slow rollout was blamed on a series of national problems as well as the delay in vaccinating vaccines compared to elsewhere and an initial shortage of supplies.
The announcement last week that AstraZeneca would initially deliver only 31 million doses to the 27 EU member states due to production problems has caused a heated dispute between the two parties, and officials in Brussels said they feared the company was treating the bloc unfairly. compared to other customers, such as the UK.
On Friday, hours after regulators approved the vaccine for use across the EU, the commission announced it was tightening rules on the export of COVID-19 vaccines, sparking a furious reaction from Britain. The commission has since made it clear that the new measure will not lead to the control of vaccines produced in the bloc of 27 countries to the small area that is part of the UK bordering EU member Ireland.
Under the post-Brexit agreement, EU products must still be able to travel unhindered from the bloc to Northern Ireland.
EU member states praised the group’s executive last year for signing numerous deals with vaccine manufacturers, saying the joint purchase with the combined market weight of the whole block ensured a fair distribution for all 27 countries at good prices.
In a statement, the European Commission said it intended to set up a specialized agency to improve the group’s response to health emergencies and “provide a more structured approach to pandemic preparedness.” ‘
As part of the effort, the EU, together with industry, said it would “finance vaccine design and development and scale up production in the short and medium term, and also target COVID-19 variants.”
“The pandemic has highlighted that manufacturing capacity is a limiting factor,” he said. “It is essential to address these challenges.”