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AFP news agency said on the 24th (local time) that multinational pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca announced that it could only deliver half of the vaccine for the novel coronavirus infection (Corona 19), which it decided to supply to the European Union in the second quarter of this year.
AstraZeneca said the previous day that the EU supply chain would only be able to deliver half of the COVID-19 vaccine supply scheduled for the second quarter of this year, but added that it will consider ways to fill the gap elsewhere.
AstraZeneca spokesman told AFP that it is working to increase the productivity of its EU supply chain, and said it will use its international supply chain to deliver the promised 180 million batches to the EU in the second quarter.
“About half of the planned supply will come from the EU supply chain and the rest from the AstraZeneca international supply chain,” he said.
On the same day, Reuters quoted an EU official that AstraZeneca said at an internal meeting that it would deliver less than half of the 180 million it had contracted to supply to the EU in the second quarter.
Reuters predicts that another shortfall could hurt the EU Commission’s goal of vaccinating 70% of the EU adult population by summer.
However, an EU Commission spokesman said, regardless of the situation in AstraZeneca, if other pharmaceutical companies supply the agreed-upon amount of vaccine on schedule, they will have more than enough vaccines to meet the EU Commission’s vaccination targets.
Currently, there are three COVID-19 vaccines approved by the EU: AstraZeneca-Oxford University, Pfizer-German Bioentech, and US Modena vaccine.
AstraZeneca also clashed with the executive committee, the EU administration, last month, saying that the EU supply in the first quarter will be less than originally planned due to production disruptions.
However, the EU Commission said it could solve the problem this time.
EU Commissioner Urzula von der Reien said in the German daily newspaper’Augsburg Algemaine’ that “new problems always arise” and “we can usually solve it smoothly.”
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