Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz announced on Monday that he intends to work with Israel and Denmark on future vaccine production and cooperation around the development of further shots to combat new coronavirus mutations. He visits Israel on Thursday with Danish leader Mette Frederiksen.
The Austrian leader has sharply criticized the EU’s vaccine strategy and the bloc’s regulator, the European Medicines Agency (EMA). The EU approved the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine in late December 2020, weeks after it was approved in the United Kingdom and the United States.
Brussels has opted for a centralized approach to the procurement and distribution of vaccines, but the plan has been hampered by supply and distribution problems. Only 5.5% of the EU population of 447 million received a first dose of vaccine, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The EMA has approved three vaccines – Pfizer / BioNTech, Oxford / AstraZeneca and Moderna – but EU countries can grant individual emergency permits for other shots, as the UK did in December, when it was still in the transition period after Brexit.
“The European Medicines Agency is too slow in terms of authorizing pharmaceutical companies,” Kurz said according to ORF. “Therefore, we must prepare for further mutations and we must no longer be dependent on the EU when it comes to second-generation vaccine production.”
Frederiksen, the Danish prime minister, made similar comments on Monday. “The European vaccine effort can no longer stand alone,” she said, adding that this is why Denmark and Austria are working together to get more doses.
Other EU countries have turned to Russia and China to fill the gaps in vaccine supply through unilateral acquisitions. On Monday, Slovakia granted emergency permission for the Sputnik V vaccine in Moscow, following a delay in the supply of the Pfizer and AstraZeneca shots.
The EMA has not yet given the green light to the Sputnik V vaccine. “The [Slovakia] “Approval is based on the results of the clinical trials of Sputnik V in Russia and a comprehensive assessment of the vaccine by experts in Slovakia,” the Russian Direct Investment Fund, which supported the production of Sputnik V, said on Monday.
“We have received numerous requests from EU countries to give Sputnik V directly to them based on the assessments of their national agencies,” RDIF CEO Kirill Dmitriev said in a statement. “We will continue to do so as well as work with EMA based on the ongoing review process we began in January.”
Slovakia is the second EU country to independently grant permission for Sputnik V to Hungary, which began vaccinating the vaccine in February. Hungary is also the first EU country to roll out China’s Sinopharm vaccine, which has not been approved by the EMA.
“Vaccination is not a political issue, it is a matter of efficiency and reliability,” Zoltan Kovacs, Hungary’s Minister of International Communications and Relations, told CNN on Monday. “We see Chinese as well as Russian vaccines being used in many places worldwide.”
Hungary also ordered doses of the Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines through the EU, but Kovacs said the bloc’s central strategy could not live up to expectations. “Well, at the moment it is clear and visible that the strategy has failed compared to the United Kingdom, Israel, even the United States,” he said.
“The Brussels bureaucracy could not come up with quick and immediate decisions regarding the contracts, we are at least two months behind.”
Hungary has long been an outlier in Europe, with its leaders regularly clashing with EU leaders over human rights policies. But Hungary is by no means the only country frustrated by the treatment of the vaccine by the bloc.
The president of the Czech Republic, Miloš Zeman, indicated on Sunday to the CNN subsidiary Prima News that his country may roll out Sputnik V if authorized by the local regulator. “I wrote to President Putin asking for the delivery of Sputnik-V. If I am properly informed, this request will be granted, but we will, of course, [medical regulator] certification, ”he said.
“If different people warn us against a Russian or Chinese vaccination, it is good to tell them that the vaccine has no ideology,” he added.
The break with the EU’s centralized strategy comes amid an evolution in the bloc regarding the AstraZeneca vaccine. France previously said it should only be administered to people under 65, citing a lack of clinical data on its efficacy in the elderly.
But Paris has extended the upper age limit to 75 years. According to Reuters, there are now fears that the initial critical comments from the government have led to the shot being taken lower in the country.
At a press conference in Downing Street on Monday, England’s deputy chief medical officer Jonathan Van-Tam said the data “clearly confirmed” the UK’s decision to vaccinate all age groups from the start of the deployment. . “I’m not here to criticize other countries, but I say that in time I think the data that comes out of our program will speak for itself and that other countries will undoubtedly be very interested in it,” he added.
EU leaders are now set to get the bloc’s vaccination campaign back on track. “Our top priority now is to accelerate the production and delivery of vaccines and vaccinations throughout the European Union,” European Council President Charles Michel said last week.
“This is why we support the Commission’s efforts to work with industry to guarantee bottlenecks, sharpen supply chains and produce. And we want more predictability and transparency to ensure pharmaceutical companies meet their obligations,” he said. he added.
The bloc is now facing a race to rectify the deployment of vaccines, while retaining the faith of troubled member states looking elsewhere for solutions.
CNN’s Lindsay Isaac, Antonia Mortensen, Ivana Kottasova, Chloe Adams, Andrew Carey and Stephanie Halasz contributed to this story.