BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Europe’s fight to secure COVID-19 vaccine supplies intensified on Thursday when the European Union warned drug companies such as AstraZeneca that it would use all legal means or even block exports unless they agreed to deliver shots as promised.
The EU, whose member states are far behind Israel, the United Kingdom and the United States in rolling out vaccines, is scrambling to get supplies just as the West’s biggest drugmakers slow deliveries to the bloc due to production problems.
As vaccination centres in Germany, France and Spain cancelled or delayed appointments, the EU publicly rebuked Anglo-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca for failing to deliver and even asked if it could divert supplies from Britain.
European Council President Charles Michel said in a letter to four EU leaders that the EU should explore legal means to ensure supplies of COVID-19 vaccines it contracted to buy if negotiations with companies over delayed deliveries are unsuccessful.
“If no satisfactory solution can be found, I believe we should explore all options and make use of all legal means and enforcement measures at our disposal under the Treaties,” Michel said in the Jan. 27 letter.
EU rules on monitoring and authorising exports of COVID-19 vaccines in the 27-nation bloc could lead to exports being blocked if they violated existing contracts between the vaccine maker and the EU, an EU official said.
The European Commission is to lay out the criteria under which such exports would be evaluated on Friday.
VACCINE CRUNCH
Under fire from the EU, AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot said the EU was late to strike a supply contract so the company did not have enough time to iron out production problems at a vaccine factory run by a partner in Belgium.
Britain, which has repeatedly touted its lead in the vaccine rollout race since leaving the EU’s orbit on Jan. 1, said its deliveries must be honoured.
“I think we need to make sure that the vaccine supply that has been bought and paid for, procured for those in the UK, is delivered,” Minister for the Cabinet Office Michael Gove told LBC Radio.
Asked if the British government would prevent AstraZeneca diverting essential vaccine supplies from Britain to the EU, Gove said the crucial thing was that Britain received its orders as planned and on time.
The swiftest mass vaccination drive in history is stoking tensions across the world as big powers buy up doses in bulk and poorer nations try to navigate a financial and diplomatic minefield to collect whatever supplies are left.
In the northern French region of Hauts-de-France, France’s second-most-densely-populated region, several vaccination centres were no longer taking appointments for a first jab. In several other French regions, some online appointment platforms closed booking options.
Spain’s Madrid region has ceased first vaccinations for at least this week and next and was using the few doses it has to administer second shots to those who have had the first one, said deputy regional government chief Ignacio Aguado.
Germany’s most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, last week postponed opening its vaccination centres until Feb. 8, while the state of Brandenburg has also had to push back vaccination appointments originally scheduled for the end of January due to delivery delays.
Vaccine shortage delays COVID-19 first shots in Paris region, source says
Meanwhile in Paris, a shortage of COVID-19 vaccines has forced Paris and two other regions that together account for a third of the French population to postpone giving out first doses, a source familiar with the discussion, and health officials, said on Thursday.
Europe faces a vaccine shortfall because pharmaceutical firm Pfizer has temporarily slowed supplies in order to make manufacturing changes, while AstraZeneca said it would cut supplies of its shot allocated to the EU in the first quarter due to production issues at a Belgian factory.
Portugal said its vaccine roll-out would be slower than planned, and Germany said shortages would persist into April.
The public health agency for Paris and the surrounding region, an area of 12.1 million people, told regional hospitals on a conference call on Wednesday that from Feb. 2, all deliveries of first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to medical establishments would be suspended, the source said.
The agency said injections of the second, follow-up dose would continue, according to the source. There was no indication during the call when first doses would resume.
The agency cited as the reason the “extremely tight vaccine supplies and the need to guarantee the second injection for people already vaccinated”, the source said. Reuters has seen a summary of the conference call.
The Paris region public health agency, in a statement sent to Reuters, said it was aiming to give people injections of first doses next week, but this was subject to changes in the volumes of vaccine deliveries that were initially promised by the manufacturers.
The statement did not address what the agency had told Paris region hospitals on the conference call.
SUPPLY PROBLEMS
The public health agency for the Hauts-de-France region in the north said earlier on Thursday that it was pushing back to the first week of March injection of the first doses that had been planned for early February. It too cited supply problems.
In the region around the wine-making Burgundy area, the public health agency said it was deferring appointments for first injections of COVID-19 vaccines in order to address supply shortages.
Residents of care homes – among the most at risk from serious illness in the epidemic – are unlikely to be affected by the delays because most have already received the first dose.
But the delays are likely to affect people over 75 and health care workers who are currently due to receive a first dose.
Most of the vaccines currently approved for use globally come in two doses: the first gives only limited protection from the virus, with the second needed to fully inoculate a patient.
The French health ministry said on Wednesday that as of Jan. 26 a total of 1.13 million first doses and 6,153 second doses had been administered.
The vaccine roll-out in France, as in its European neighbours, lags far behind other countries. States including Israel, Serbia, the United Arab Emirates and Britain have already vaccinated much larger shares of their population.
Because EU countries decided to procure their vaccines collectively, the supply issues hitting France are affecting other countries in the bloc.
Portugal said the first phase of its vaccination plan will be extended by around two months into April, as delivery delays mean it will receive half the expected doses by March.
Germany faces a shortage well into April. “We will still have at least 10 tough weeks with a shortage of vaccine,” Health Minister Jens Spahn said in a Tweet.
(Reporting by Caroline Pailliez; Writing by Christian Lowe and Geert De Clercq, Editing by Giles Elgood)
