EU warns of blocking COVID-19 vaccine export amid 'surprising' shortfall by AstraZeneca

The European Union (EU) has threatened to block the export of COVID-19 vaccines to third-world countries outside the 27-nation-bloc such as Britain. The British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical company, AstraZeneca was accused of failing to give a satisfactory explanation for a huge shortfall of promised doses to member states. As per reports, AstraZeneca’s new distribution plans for EU were deemed “unacceptable” after it “surprisingly” informed the European Commission on January 22 about significant shortfalls on the original schedule of deliveries. 

While the EU was due to receive at least 100 million doses in the first quarter of 2021. It is feared that the member states will only receive half of that despite the large advance purchases before the authorisation of the company’s COVID-19 candidate by the European medicines agency. Therefore, facing criticism of a slow rollout in the EU, the European Commission threatened to impose controls on vaccines that would affect Belgium-manufactured Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. 

Warning the EU “will take any action required to protect its citizens and rights”, European health commissioner Stella Kyriakides said in a broadcast address that an “export transparency mechanism” will be installed “as soon as possible”.

“In the future, all companies producing vaccines against Covid-19 in the EU will have to provide early notification whenever they want to export vaccines to third countries,” she said after accusing AstraZeneca of failing to give a valid explanation for the shortfalls from its end. 

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European Commission president calls AstraZeneca CEO

As per The Guardian report, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen exchanged a heated conversation on January 25 on a call with AstraZeneca’s chief executive, Pascal Soriot. She also urged the company to live up to the obligations according to the deal signed with the bloc as the European medical agency readies to approve its COVID-19 vaccine by the end of this week. As per reports, European Commission president’s spokesperson said, "She made it clear that she expects AstraZeneca to deliver on the contractual arrangements foreseen in the advance purchasing agreement". "She reminded Mr Soriot that the EU has invested significant amounts in the company up front precisely to ensure that production is ramped up even before the conditional market authorisation is delivered by the European Medicines Agency," the spokesperson added. 

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