AstraZeneca to deliver 9m more vaccine doses to EU, says Von der Leyen

AstraZeneca will deliver nine million more doses of its Covid-19 vaccine to the European Union in the first quarter of this year, making a total of 40 million for the period, and will start deliveries one week earlier than expected, the president of the European Commission said on Sunday.

The Anglo-Swedish company unexpectedly announced earlier this month that it would cut supplies to the EU of its vaccine candidate in the first quarter, sparking a row over supplies.

"AstraZeneca will deliver 9 million additional doses in the first quarter (40 million in total) compared to last week's offer and will start deliveries one week earlier than scheduled," Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission wrote on Twitter. The company would expand its manufacturing capacity in Europe, she said.

Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly said on Twitter that the additional doses "is progress and will mean more vaccines for Ireland in the next two months".

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Ireland is likely to receive about 99,000 of the nine million additional doses. The State makes up about 1.1 per cent of the EU’s population of 448 million and doses are allocated in proportion to population.

Last week, AstraZeneca had offered to bring forward some deliveries to the EU. It had also offered eight million more doses to the European Union to try to defuse the dispute but an EU official told Reuters that was too far short of what was originally promised as AstraZeneca had committed to at least 80 million shots in the first quarter.

Earlier on Sunday, the European Commission president held a videoconference with CEOs of companies manufacturing vaccines and warned of the threat of coronavirus variants.

“It is crucial to prepare for the appearance of such variants,” Dr Von der Leyen said in a statement.

On Sunday night, Dr Von der Leyen rejected suggestions that Europe was in a race to vaccinate its population against the coronavirus faster than other countries, saying that it was important to co-operate at this stage of the pandemic.

“We want 70 per cent of the grownup population to be vaccinated by the end of the summer,” Dr Von der Leyen said in an interview Sunday with German broadcaster ZDF. She added that supplies should increase significantly in the second quarter when Johnson and Johnson and other pharmaceutical companies overcome early hurdles.

A spokesman for AstraZeneca declined to comment on the additional deliveries.

The European Union's civil service is under fire over the slow pace of vaccination in the bloc, with critics pointing to faster progress being made in Britain, Israel and the United States as evidence of a planning failure in Brussels. "I think the only race we are in is with the virus and against time," Dr Von der Leyen told German television on Sunday evening, adding that she had agreed with British prime minister Boris Johnson that factories in both regions would deliver doses to each region.– Reuters