The European Union has taken a first step towards clamping down on the export of coronavirus vaccines after pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca told the bloc it would deliver far fewer doses than expected in the next months. The EU hasn’t stopped manufacturers from selling to outside nations, including the UK, but has taken a step towards this by requiring vaccine manufacturers to give notice before exporting.
“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,” said Stella Kyriakides, the EU commissioner for health, on 25 January. “Humanitarian deliveries are, of course, not affected by this. The European Union will take any action required to protect its citizens and rights.”
Even before it was clear whether any vaccine would work, many countries signed deals with vaccine-makers to provide set numbers of doses by certain dates. As part of these, countries paid in advance for the preparation of manufacturing facilities.
?
AstraZeneca was meant to deliver 80 million doses of its vaccine to the EU by the end of March. The EU hasn’t yet approved this vaccine, but is expected to do so soon.
Last week, AstraZeneca told the EU that it would only be able to deliver 31 million doses. According to Reuters, this is because the EU doses are being made at a vaccine factory in Belgium run by a company called Novasep that has faced production problems.
Read more at:
"EU begins to clamp down on vaccine exports as supplies fall short | New Scientist
No comments:
Post a Comment