Paris (AFP)

Its anti-Covid vaccine has not yet been approved and problems are already looming.

The German CureVac, which is to play an important role in European vaccination campaigns, evokes supply difficulties, accusing the United States of blocking the export of certain components.

"We no longer receive the materials we need all the time," admitted Franz-Werner Haas, boss of CureVac, in an interview Tuesday with the German magazine Der Spiegel, specifying that these components were blocked across the Atlantic.

Asked about the rate of production of his vaccine this summer, Mr. Haas refrained from answering, contenting himself with saying that in this matter his group lived "from day to day" and struggled to constitute "a large stock".

This situation is embarrassing for the European Union, which wants to vaccinate 70% of its adult inhabitants against Covid-19 by July.

Without being essential for this purpose, the vaccine from CureVac could provide significant help.

Admittedly, it is not yet approved: its tests must be completed in the coming weeks and, in the wake, the European health authorities will decide on it.

But the EU has already made a big bet on it.

It has ordered more than 400 million doses, the main order received by CureVac in the world.

The upcoming arrival of this vaccine is welcome because the EU has suffered setbacks with several other suppliers, starting with the British AstraZeneca now engaged with Brussels in legal proceedings because of delivery delays.

AstraZeneca, like the vaccine of the American Johnson & Johnson, has also been banned in Denmark and excluded in other countries for younger population categories, because of possible serious side effects (a very rare type of thrombosis) .

Unlike these two vaccines, CureVac uses messenger RNA technology, just like the other two vaccines already approved in the EU, Pfizer and Moderna which do not cause health concern.

The doubts of the boss of CureVac are all the more worrying as they recall the arguments of AstraZeneca to justify its delivery delays.

The British group had explained that other countries were blocking the export of vaccines manufactured on their territory, targeting without naming them the United Kingdom and, above all, the United States.

- Bottling in France -

CureVac is more explicit by openly referring to American blockages.

He cites restrictions linked to the Defense Production Act, a law that normally frames war efforts but was invoked by Presidents Donald Trump and then Joe Biden in the face of the pandemic.

The difference with AstraZeneca is that the United States does not block the export of a finished vaccine but, according to Mr. Haas, that of essential components for its manufacture in Europe.

These are, for example, nucleotides, which are then used to synthesize the RNA fragments which are the basis of the functioning of the vaccine.

This dependence on the United States is a bad surprise, whereas CureVac had put forward in recent months the constitution of "a vast industrial network in Europe".

It has entered into agreements with regulars in pharmaceutical subcontracting, such as the Fareva group's bottling factories in France, and pharmaceutical giants such as the German Bayer and the Swiss Novartis.

But this may be insufficient in the short term, an embarrassing finding for the EU as it seeks to reassure the ability of its factories to respond quickly to demand for vaccines.

The European commissioner in charge of supervising the production of vaccines, Thierry Breton, regularly assures us that the European industry is in working order with about fifty sites contributing to the production of vaccines.

Asked by AFP about possible concerns about the production of CureVac vaccines, the EU did not respond.

On the side of France, where the bottling of the CureVac vaccine by Fareva is scheduled for late May or early June depending on its date of authorization, the government assured AFP that there would be "no 'impact on the start of production ".

But "it will be necessary to remain vigilant on the capacity to increase the production then", he admitted, returning the ball to CureVac.

© 2021 AFP