Though it modified course on that, the EU is pushing forward with a plan to watch vaccines made in its member states, a transfer that might hamper the UK’s entry to provides, notably the Belgian-made BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine.
Germany’s well being minister on Saturday referred to as on the European Union to get its “justifiable share” of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.
In an interview with the German weekly Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, Well being Minister Jens Spahn mentioned he wished transparency from the pharmaceutical firm. ,
“This isn’t about Europe first, however concerning the justifiable share of Europe,” Spahn was quoted as saying.
In keeping with the newspaper, Spahn mentioned he wished to make sure that all AstraZeneca prospects had been “affected in the identical manner” by the manufacturing issues that the corporate blamed for decreasing shipments within the coming months.
The European Union expressed anger this week at AstraZeneca’s announcement that it might initially solely provide 31 million doses of vaccine to the 27-nation bloc, as a substitute of the 80 million doses it anticipated to ship. The EU mentioned it supplied 336 million ($ 408 million) to assist finance the manufacturing of AstraZeneca’s vaccine at 4 factories months earlier than it was authorized by medical regulators.
The dispute reached a brand new tone on Friday night time when the EU launched a “vaccine export transparency mechanism” to set stricter guidelines on COVID-19 vaccine exports.
