The European Union will not receive tens of millions of doses of vaccine against the coronavirus from the Swedish-British company AstraZeneca. An unnamed European official told Reuters about it.
The interlocutor of the agency said that the EU will receive less than 90 million doses instead of the agreed 180 million in the second quarter of this year. The publication notes that the cut in supplies could derail the union’s plans to vaccinate 70 percent of its population by the summer of 2021.
The company itself did not refute the words of the European official, but stressed that they are making every effort to increase the production of the drug. The representative of the European Commission, in turn, assured that regardless of the situation with AstraZeneca, the EU should receive the doses necessary to fulfill the vaccination plan from other suppliers.
The EU is facing problems in the supply of vaccines against the coronavirus. So, on January 15, the pharmaceutical company Pfizer announced its decision to reduce the supply of the drug to European countries while modernizing its production. Then on January 23, the Bild newspaper reported that AstraZeneca would not be able to deliver the expected number of doses of its vaccine to European countries. One of the reasons for the disruption to supplies is a fire at a vaccine plant under construction in the Indian city of Pune.