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European Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides announced Monday night that AstraZeneca will no longer deliver all doses of vaccine negotiated by the European Commission and has publicly told the company to take steps to deliver the set amount, given that the vaccine was financed with European money. At the same time, he announced a transparency mechanism, through which companies will be obliged to announce exports to non-EU countries.
The European official said the AstraZeneca vaccine is in the final stages of the marketing approval process, and a favorable decision from the European Medicines Agency will be announced “later this week, if all conditions are met.”
“But there is a supply problem. Last Friday, AstraZeneca surprisingly informed the Commission and the European Union that it intends to provide considerably less vaccine doses than agreed and announced. The new schedule is unacceptable,” Stella Kyriakides said in a press conference.
The European Health Commissioner said he had sent a letter to the company raising “serious and important questions” as the EU pre-finances the development and production of the vaccine and “wants to see the result.”
“The European Union wants to know exactly how many doses AstraZeneca produced, where they arrived and to whom they were delivered. The responses from the company so far have been unsatisfactory. For this reason, a second meeting is scheduled tonight,” said Stella Kyriakides.
He added that the EU wants the ordered vaccine doses, which they pre-funded, be delivered “as soon as possible.” “We want the contract to be fully respected,” he added.
Stella Kyriakides emphasized that she proposed to the 27 member states that a transparency mechanism be implemented immediately, given that the EU funded a total of 2.7 billion euros to develop various anti-COVID vaccines.
“We want clarity in transactions and total transparency regarding vaccine exports. In the future, all EU companies producing COVID vaccine will announce in advance a possible export to third countries,” he added, specifying that deliveries humanitarian agencies will not be affected by this procedure.
Editing: George Costita
