Covid-19: AstraZeneca to deliver 30% more vaccines to EU than expected
A view of the AstraZeneca offices in Cambridge (illustrative image).
AP - Alastair Grant
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
The Astra Zeneca laboratory has angered the EU by announcing this week a delay in delivery and fewer doses of vaccine due to problems at the production site.
Astra Zeneca will finally deliver earlier and 30% more doses than expected.
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“
Astra Zeneca will deliver 9 million additional doses in the 1st quarter.
40 million in total.
Delivery will begin a week ahead of schedule,
”European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced on Twitter on Sunday.
Step forward on vaccines. @ AstraZeneca will deliver 9 million additional doses in the first quarter (40 million in total) compared to last week's offer & will start deliveries one week earlier than scheduled.
The company will also expand its manufacturing capacity in Europe.
- Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) January 31, 2021
"
Companies must honor their obligations and deliveries due
," Ursula von der Leyen warned a few days ago when
the laboratory announced delays
.
AstraZeneca also expected to deliver only a quarter of the doses initially planned.
The laboratory justified itself by explaining that it had production problems on the Belgian site of Seneffe.
An excuse that the European executive did not consider admissible, reports our correspondent in Brussels,
Laxmi Lota
.
Some parts of the contract signed between the laboratory and the Commission
have therefore been made public.
"
A clear contract as rock water
", commented the president of the committee who also assured that the objective of the EU to vaccinate 70% of adults by the end of the summer was still topical.
In an interview with certain media, the CEO of AstraZeneca, the French Pascal Soriot, had however assured to have to reserve to the British the production of factories in the United Kingdom.
An argument strongly contested by Brussels: the use of British factories to supply the EU "
is not an option, it is a contractual obligation
", insisted a European official.
Berlin threatened Sunday with legal action against laboratories "failing to meet their obligations" to deliver vaccines to the EU.
"
Going to court does not necessarily bring you the doses
", however, said a European source.
"
We therefore rely on dialogue and negotiation ...
" The dialogue, firm, seems to have borne fruit.
(With AFP)
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