The EU will approve the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine by the end of this week. But the trouble is already brewing because the British-Swedish company has announced delays in the delivery of the 400 million doses ordered by the European Commission.
DW looks at some facts:
How can delivery bottlenecks occur if the EU has paid millions to increase AstraZeneca’s production?
DW fact checking: Not verifiable. The European Union seems to be as confused about this as the public. AstraZeneca has denied allegations by the EU that it withdrew from a follow-up meeting scheduled for Wednesday with the EU after Monday’s unconvincing talks.
The EU expected 80 million doses by the end of March. As things stand at present, the company will only be able to deliver 31 million. AstraZeneca has informed the EU that it is deteriorating on its supply target due to production problems at one of its European plants.
The company’s response to a DW request for comment was equally vague. “Although there is no planned delay in the start of delivery of our vaccine, the initial volumes will be less than originally expected, due to lower yields at a manufacturing site in our European supply chain,” the company said in ‘ wrote an email.
The EU is particularly irritated because it paid AstraZeneca hundreds of millions of euros in advance to speed up production before the official approval of the vaccine. Ursula von der Leyen, head of the European Commission, said that “Europe has invested billions to help develop the world’s first COVID-19 vaccines and create global demand.” The duty, according to her, was now on the companies to ‘fulfill and fulfill their obligations’. There is currently no independent information available to explain AstraZeneca’s delivery bottlenecks in Europe.
Does the UK get its delivery of the vaccine without any problems?
DW fact checking: Where. There are currently no delivery bottlenecks in the UK. The AstraZeneca vaccine has been administered there since early January. This prompted the EU to ask whether the contingent he had ordered had ended up in the UK, sparking claims of preferential treatment for Britain.
EP member Peter Liese, a health spokesman for the European People’s Party Group in the European Parliament, said the company’s statements were unlikely. “According to the company, the supply chains are separate entities. But that’s not true. Until a few days ago, the vaccine destined for the United Kingdom was still bottled in the German city of Dessau. Conversely, two production sites in the United States Kingdom explicitly stated in the contract it signed with the EU. ‘Liese added that AstraZeneca must decide whether it wants to act as an international or British company.
Due to the delivery problems with AstraZeneca and BioNTech / Pfizer, the European Commission is working on a so-called transparency mechanism to take up the export of vaccines to countries outside the EU.
According to the BBC, a majority of AstraZeneca doses are produced in the UK, while the BioNTech / Pfizer vaccine is delivered from the EU.
While the EU is being forced to wait, people in the UK have been getting the jab since early January.
At DW’s request to comment on the delivery of deliveries in the UK and not in the EU, the company wrote in an email: “Accelerating the production and delivery of vaccines involves collaboration with more more than 20 delivery partners in more than 15 countries, supported by more than 20 analytical testing centers. “
Is AstraZeneca in breach of its contract with the EU?
DW fact checking: Probably true. According to MP Tiemo Wölken of the Social Democrats, if AstraZeneca were to be able to deliver only 40% of the agreed amount by the end of the first quarter, it could be a ‘breach of contract’. However, he pointed out that he had not handed over a copy of the contract. The EU monitors this contract and most others. Only the agreement with CureVac was partially announced.
In an interview with the German daily Die Welt, AstraZeneca’s CEO, Pascal Soriot, denied the allegations that his company had acted in vain. “We have not committed to the EU,” he said of the delivery amounts. “We said we were going to do our best.” He also pointed out that the UK had signed a contract three months before the EU did so.
The European Commission insists it wants to find a beneficial solution to the problem. If these attempts fail, the Commission could take legal action against AstraZeneca, depending on what is actually in the contract.
Is the AstraZeneca vaccine less effective in the elderly?
DW fact checking: Unconvincing. Elderly people belong to the high-risk group. Any diminished efficiency can have fatal consequences. According to reports in the Handelsblatt daily and the tabloid Picture, the efficacy of the vaccine in the age group 65 and older is only 8%.
However, the facts are unclear. The German Ministry of Health contradicted these allegations and suggested that the source for the figure had confused their numbers. “At first glance, two things appear to be confused in the reports: About 8% of the subjects in the AstraZeneca efficacy study were between 56 and 69 years old, and only 3 to 4% were older than 70 years,” he said. a spokesman said.
An article in the medical journal The Lancet explained that the number of older adults who participated in the 3rd phase of the AstraZeneca vaccine trial was too low to allow a definitive judgment on the efficacy of the elderly at this stage. Nevertheless, at the end of last year, the UK’s Regulatory Agency for Medicines and Healthcare Products approved AstraZeneca’s emergency permit for adults 18 and older.
AstraZeneca described the allegations of low efficiency in the elderly as ‘completely wrong’. A company spokesperson refers to data contained in The Lancet in November that the immune response was the same in all age groups. The proportion of older adults in the study was higher; however, the total number of participants was significantly lower. Furthermore, the results relate to a phase II trial, a precursor of the study in question, which means that experts cannot make a definite judgment on the efficacy of the elderly.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is responsible for approving a vaccine in the EU. Depending on the assessment of the AstraZeneca vaccine, EU countries may decide to change their priority sequence for administering the vaccine to certain age groups.
This article has been translated from German.