[ad_1]
BRUSSELS: European governments said the credibility of their vaccination programs was at risk on Friday (January 15) after US pharmaceutical company Pfizer announced a temporary slowdown in deliveries of its COVID-19 vaccines.
The injections developed by Pfizer with its German partner BioNTech began to be administered in the EU in late December, but about nine of the 27 EU governments complained of “insufficient” doses at a meeting this week, one participant said.
Pfizer initially said deliveries were progressing on schedule, but then announced on Friday that there would be a temporary impact on shipments from late January to early February due to changes in manufacturing processes to boost production.
“This situation is unacceptable,” the health and social ministers of six EU states said in a letter to the EU commission on Pfizer’s delays.
“It not only affects the planned vaccination schedules, but it also diminishes the credibility of the vaccination process,” said the ministers of Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
Germany, Europe’s largest buyer of the Pfizer vaccine, called the decision surprising and regrettable, while Canada said it was also affected, because its supplies come from a Pfizer factory in Belgium.
Norway and Lithuania had previously said that the company was reducing supplies in Europe. “What we want is for Pfizer-BioNTech to restore its deliveries to the agreed schedule,” Lithuanian Health Minister Arunas Dulkys told Reuters.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Pfizer had assured her that planned deliveries to the EU in the first quarter would not be delayed.
READ: COVID-19 cases in Europe exceed 30 million
READ: Global death toll nears 2 million as WHO fights new virus strains
PROMISED INCREASE
Pfizer, which is trying to deliver millions of doses at breakneck rates to curb a pandemic that has already killed nearly 2 million people, said its changes “would provide a significant increase in doses in late February and March.”
Neither the company nor the EU have indicated how many doses are expected in the first quarter.
A second EU source told Reuters that in another internal EU meeting with diplomats on Wednesday, an EU Commission official said that deliveries would be limited until at least March, and that production will seriously increase only in September.
Pfizer and BioNTech have contracts with the EU to supply up to 600 million doses this year. They have agreed to deliver 75 million shots in the second quarter and more by the end of the year.
The EU also approved the vaccine developed by the American biotech firm Moderna, which began shipping this week.
Moderna has committed to delivering 10 million doses by the end of March and 35 million each in the second and third quarters. Another 80 million doses will also be delivered this year, but still without a clear schedule.
LEE: The EU agency approves Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine
READ: Dutch start COVID-19 vaccines; last EU nation to do so
PRO RATA?
Pfizer and Moderna have not published detailed delivery schedules for each of the 27 EU countries, which are expected to receive a share of vaccines in proportion to their share of the EU’s 450 million inhabitants.
Pfizer said the information was confidential, while Moderna said: “At this stage, we can only confirm that the doses will be distributed on a pro-rata basis among EU countries.”
But the deliveries don’t appear to be proceeding smoothly.
The German Health Ministry website says that the country, with a population of 83 million, will receive nearly 4 million doses of Pfizer by the end of January.
READ: A bleak start to the new year for Britain as it enters the third COVID-19 lockdown
READ: Low doses and empty vaccination centers: Headache from COVID-19 vaccine launch in Germany
Romania, with a population four times smaller, says it expects to receive only 600,000 doses in the same period. Bulgaria, with less than a tenth of Germany’s population, expects to receive only about 60,000 injections from Pfizer in January.
A spokesman for the EU Commission said that national schedules were partly dependent on contracts signed by each state. It is unclear if all EU governments ordered its full vaccine allocation, as this information is confidential.
The EU has obtained nearly 2.3 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines and candidates from six companies, but most have yet to be approved. Decisions on the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are expected in late January and February, respectively.
CHECK THIS: Our comprehensive coverage of the coronavirus outbreak and its developments
Download our app or subscribe to our Telegram channel for the latest updates on the coronavirus outbreak: https://cna.asia/telegram
