EU demands that AstraZeneca make up delays of its Covid-19 vaccine by supplying doses from its UK factories on Wednesday risked setting the bloc …
EU demands that AstraZeneca make up delays of its Covid-19 vaccine by supplying doses from its UK factories on Wednesday risked setting the bloc and Britain on a post-Brexit collision course. Both the European Union and former member Britain insisted the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company uphold contractual delivery promises to each of them — even as the company said there was not enough to go around. “The 27 European Union member states are united that AstraZeneca needs to deliver on its commitments in our agreements,” EU health commissioner Stella Kyriakides told a Brussels media conference. In London, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman said: “We expect contracts to be adhered to. AstraZeneca has committed to two million doses a week here in the UK and we do not expect that to change.” The row was triggered last Friday when AstraZeneca informed the EU that it could only supply a quarter of the vaccine doses it had promised for the first three months of this year. That infuriated the European Commission, which is planning this week to add the AstraZeneca vaccine to two others it has already authorised — from BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna — to help reach a goal of inoculating 70 percent of adults in the EU by the end of August.
