A rift between the European Union and the British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca threatens to hamper global vaccination efforts and increase tensions on the continent as European countries struggle to vaccinate their populations amid the threat of new, more virulent strains of the coronavirus.
The EU bought 400 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine, which the company made in partnership with the University of Oxford, before it was approved by EU regulators. But last week, AstraZeneca suddenly announced that due to production issues, it would be able to deliver only about 40 percent of the total promise in the first quarter or about 31 million doses to the EU.
This, of course, angered EU leaders, who were desperately trying to vaccinate their people.
Reuters reported on Friday that the company had agreed to inject another 8 million doses – but the EU said it was not good enough and demanded that AstraZeneca do more, including use of its UK facilities to cover the shortfall to compensate.
AstraZeneca says it is unable to do so, and that its contract with the EU (the strong version of which was published on Friday) only requires it to make the “best effort” to deliver the vaccines in Europe. The problem is that the EU and AstraZeneca do not agree on what the best effort means.
And now the battle threatens to spill over, with worrying implications for the global vaccination effort.
On Friday, the European Union approved the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine. But it has also taken the dramatic step of placing export controls on all coronavirus vaccines.
The final regulation is expected to be published on Saturday, but it will require vaccine makers to notify the EU when coronavirus vaccines are exported to most countries outside the European Union; more than 90 countries have been released, but not the United States or the United Kingdom. Individual EU member states will then have to approve the export, and this could be blocked if they believe that companies exporting the vaccines do not approve their own deliveries with the EU.
It is not a complete ban on the export of vaccines, and it is expected to last only until March, but experts and observers are concerned that it sets a worrying precedent.
There are now several vaccines available, and more promising candidates on the way. But the EU AstraZeneca dispute is the latest sign that global collaboration and solidarity on vaccine failure is failing, said Rebecca Weintraub, faculty director of the Global Health Delivery Project at Harvard University.
“This is vaccine nationalism 101,” she said.
The EU was slower to sign an agreement with AstraZeneca than the US and the UK. This delay can now cause problems.
The European Union, on behalf of its 27 member states, has agreed with a vaccine manufacturer and bet on a bunch of potential candidates and bought doses in advance. In total, the EU has bought 2.3 billion vaccine doses from a handful of companies.
But initially, richer EU members such as Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands themselves negotiated with vaccine makers, including AstraZeneca. “It has caused a lot of friction in Europe,” Christian Odendahl, chief economist at the Center for European Reform, told me. “If you are politically as well as economically integrated, you do not want to be vaccinated and your neighboring country will not be vaccinated.”
The bloc had to ensure that smaller, less affluent member states without large purchasing power could also get vaccinations. The solution? Let the European Union itself take over the vaccine purchase process for all the member states.
“But,” said Paulette Kurzer, an expert on European politics and public health at the University of Arizona. The EU had to consult with the individual governments and balance all their interests. Other issues, such as liability protection and the cost of vaccines, have also delayed discussions.
The European Union eventually entered into these transactions with AstraZeneca and other vaccine manufacturers, but it was later in the signing of the AstraZeneca contract than others, including the United Kingdom.
Fast forward to December, when the UK became the first country in the world to authorize a vaccine (the Pfizer-BioNtech one) for emergency use. The US soon followed, but EU approval did not come at the end of December.
Already a few weeks behind some of its peers, the European vaccination campaign has remained sluggish compared to places like Israel and the United Kingdom.
A shortage of doses meant that EU countries had to downsize the rate of vaccination; Madrid, Spain, for example, is stopping its vaccination program this week. Germany’s health minister said shortages could continue until July.
New doses of AstraZeneca will relieve the pressure. But then the bad news came when AstraZeneca announced that it would not be its initial commitment.
AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot said in an interview with Italian newspaper La Repubblica that the company works “24/7” to correct the “errors” in its European production.
“But the British contract was signed three months before the European vaccine agreement,” Soriot said. ‘So, with the UK, we had three months extra time to rectify all the mistakes we experienced. As far as Europe is concerned, we are three months behind in correcting the mistakes. ”
However, the EU has insisted that, under the terms of the contract, AstraZeneca use its manufacturing facilities in the UK to supply the EU part with the EU. However, AstraZeneca says it must first meet its obligations to the UK before it can deliver to Europe or anywhere else. It currently produces about 2 million doses per week in the UK.
AstraZeneca announced its purchase agreement with the EU on Friday to try to clear up the confusion. But it did not do much to resolve the dispute.
European Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen said on Friday it was “crystal clear” that the contract said AstraZeneca should use British factories to supply the EU as EU production was halted.
AstraZeneca again says that the contract states that he made a “best reasonable effort” to comply with the dosing instructions, and that is what he is doing.
The deadlock between the EU and AstraZeneca therefore remains.
In some ways, the details of the contract are not the issue. The European Union – which is facing great pressure from its member states – is desperate to deliver these vaccines to its citizens. And as expected, global demand for a vaccine significantly exceeds supply and the pace at which companies can produce it.
The European public is frustrated with the deployment of vaccines. They see that other countries are being vaccinated faster. Individual member states are responsible for the implementation and distribution of vaccinations within their own borders. The blame for the EU for shelling out the procurement process is a great way to divert the debt from their citizens.
And AstraZeneca – with additional factories so tediously located in the former EU Member State, the UK – is a useful target for the EU to take the debt a step further.
The EU is using its power to try to get vaccines, whatever. This is exactly the kind of vaccine nationalism that the world feared would happen.
The EU’s threat to block vaccine exports could directly harm the UK, which relies on a factory in Belgium for the dose of Pfizer vaccine. But other countries, such as Canada, have expressed concern about whether their stocks could also be affected by this.
The biggest fear is that this could be the first domino to fall, as other countries feel they have to act in their own interest, and perhaps block exports, or withhold raw materials – whatever leverage they can use to control the doses of the vaccines. to muscle populations.
“Our supply chains are worldwide,” Julie Swann, a health systems and supply chain expert at North Carolina State University, told me. ‘While the production of a supply chain may take place in one part of the world, the raw materials or consumables or composition may be in another place. This highway is potentially dangerous to push as a main strategy. ”
Experts said the world could see a repeat of the early days of the pandemic, when about 80 countries or customs areas banned or restricted the export of supplies.
“It could rekindle the policy of ‘beggar-your-neighbor’ that marked the early days of the pandemic regarding personal protective equipment, ventilators and other medical supplies,” said Thomas J. Bollyky, senior fellow for global health, economics and development at the Council on Foreign Relations said.
The EU may consider this decision in its own interest. But if other countries follow their example, it could fall back: the EU and the rest of the world. Because it will almost prolong the pandemic.
“It’s getting clearer, the big gap between what people say and what they do,” Krishna Udayakumar, director of the Duke Global Health Innovation Center, told me. The EU, in particular, he said, is seen as a leader in global health equity. It is strongly supported by Covax, the multilateral effort to help poor countries be vaccinated. And yet everyone is still looking after themselves.
“At the end of the day,” he said, the EU “is doing everything they can to gain access to vaccines for their own people as quickly as possible.”