The pharmaceutical AstraZeneca, which develops the vaccine against Covid-19 together with the University of Oxford, has warned the European Union that it will not be able to deliver the doses planned for the first quarter of the year.
The European Health Commissioner, the Cypriot Stella Kyriakides, explained that the British has announced to the Twenty-seven of a delay in the delivery of vaccines “compared to what is expected for the first quarter of this year.”
The European Union already has two vaccines on the market but has a larger portfolio pending analysis and approval. That of BioNTech and Pfizer was the first to be approved, last December, although it has worried the block by announcing a delay of weeks in the distribution of the committed doses for the first quarter. The Moderna one, approved at the beginning of the year, is also already in distribution, and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) is expected to give the green light to the one developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford before it ends. the month.
In a message on Twitter, the European Health Commissioner has indicated that the members of the European Union have expressed their “deep discontent.” “We insist on a precise delivery schedule so that we know which Member States must plan their vaccination programs,” he said.
They have also conveyed to the British company the need to speed up the distribution of doses. On August 27, the European Commission signed an agreement with AstraZeneca with a purchase obligation that entails the acquisition for Europe of 300 million doses, with a total cost of 870 million euros.
The Secretary General for Digital Health, Information and Innovation, Alfredo González, indicated this Thursday that in 15 days the first doses of the vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and the company AstraZeneca could be available in Spain, if approved by the European Agency of the drug.
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