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The European Commission will launch new rules tomorrow to monitor exports of Covid-19 vaccines outside the EU, as controversy continues over the deficit of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Officials have said the new rules could, in certain cases, amount to a ban on the export of vaccines to third countries.
However, they said the goal is to ensure that member states know which vaccines are going where and to ensure that those exports do not spoil delivery targets that the European Commission had signed with pharmaceutical companies through advance purchase agreements.
The EU is currently locked in a dispute with AstraZeneca after the company told the Commission last Friday that it would only deliver a quarter of the doses of vaccine member states expected to receive in the first quarter.
The EU has accused the company of violating an advance purchase agreement that should have meant that 80 million doses went to the EU in the coming weeks, and officials have said the shortfall should be made up with supplies from two of the plant’s facilities. AstraZeneca in the UK, which, the Commission says, had to supply the contractual amounts.
Officials have said the goal of the new rules is not to ban vaccine exports, but acknowledge that that could be an outcome if their export somehow prevented the delivery of doses to European citizens.
“Obviously there are deficiencies that we have to see, we have to monitor and we have to verify,” says an official.
“We have to be honest and we have to react. It’s about transparency. It’s not about banning. [exports].
“We owe that transparency not only to patients in Europe, or the population in Europe waiting for the vaccine to arrive, but also to taxpayers, because we have invested a lot in these advanced purchase agreements.”
The European Commission has said it paid 334 million euros to AstraZeneca to develop and produce vaccines at four plants, two in the UK, one in Belgium and one in Germany.
Officials say the exact reasons for denying an export license will be announced tomorrow when the new measures are launched.
First, the responsibility would fall on the pharmaceutical companies to inform national customs authorities of the details of any vaccine shipments leaving Europe, and those authorities would then issue a license or raise any concerns.
“There is no general intention to reject or grant, it is about the contractual arrangements that companies have,” said an official.
The European Commission said that any vaccine supplies going to the EU neighborhood, lower-income countries or third countries through the CoVax initiative would be exempt from export controls.
Officials say this is an emergency, time-limited measure that would be restricted to the first quarter. However, it could be expanded if necessary.
“If our doses are delivered, there will be no more problems with exports,” said an official.
When asked what would happen to vaccine exports to a country like Canada, which has its own advance purchase orders with AstraZeneca for vaccine doses being produced in Europe, the official said it was the company’s responsibility to ensure that that met the associated deliveries. with the contracts he had entered into.
“If they concluded several [contracts] for several countries, they have the obligation to meet the goals, “said the official.
“No one comes first. It is up to companies to make sure they can meet demand.”
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