Covid-19: Europe locks vaccine exports
Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, on January 18, 2021 in Brussels, Belgium.
AP - Johanna Geron
Text by: RFI Follow
4 min
After Pfizer, the AstraZeneca laboratory also announced a 60% reduction in its vaccine deliveries.
The European Union is counting all the more on the AstraZeneca vaccine, of which it has 400 million doses on pre-order, that it costs less than those of Pfizer and Moderna and that it does not require storage at -70 ° C.
The standoff is therefore engaged between the EU and the Anglo-Swedish laboratory.
Hence the idea of controlling exports, supported in particular by Germany and France.
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With our correspondent in Brussels,
Pierre Benazet
The pressure exerted by the European Union since the announcement of
AstraZeneca's delays
has not been relaxed.
Two meetings with the EU for the Anglo-Swedish laboratory, a letter from the Commissioner for Health, a phone call from the President of the Commission to the CEO of AstraZeneca, and then this idea: a vaccine export control mechanism .
The principle is to keep a register of exports outside Europe of vaccines produced there.
Laboratories will have to notify European authorities when they want to export, except for humanitarian reasons.
► To read also: "Manaus has become the world capital of Covid-19"
“
The European Union and others have provided funds.
Significant sums were invested to build research and production centers early on.
Europe has invested billions to help develop the world's first Covid-19 vaccines.
And now it's up to the laboratories to provide.
They must honor their obligations.
That is why we are going to build a transparency mechanism for vaccine exports.
Europe is determined to contribute to this global common good, but it will also defend its own interests
”, declared the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, Tuesday 26 January.
Europe invested billions to help develop the world's 1st COVID vaccines & create a global common good.
Now the companies must deliver & honor their obligations.
We will set up a vaccine export transparency mechanism.
EU is committed to contribute.
But we also mean business.
pic.twitter.com/lvq0KkCWJD
- Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) January 26, 2021
Is this an effect of European pressure?
Still, the CEO of AstraZeneca promises the European Union 17% of its production.
The European Medicines Agency is due to speak this Friday, January 29 on the approval of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine.
► To read also: The controversy over the doses of Pfizer vaccines continues, and this time in Sweden
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Health and medicine
Coronavirus
European Union
Ursula von der Leyen
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