REVIEW - EU's Row With AstraZeneca Over Delays In COVID-19 Vaccine Deliveries Intensifies

BRUSSELS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 30th January, 2021) Despite the approval of the use of UK drugmaker AstraZeneca's vaccine against COVID-19 in the EU, a dispute between the bloc and the manufacturer over delay in deliveries of doses has only intensified over the past week.

On Friday, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the European Commission greenlighted the use of the vaccine, one day after Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides condemned the delays in shipments and called them unacceptable.

EU officials were alarmed after AstraZeneca announced that the number of vaccine doses it would be able to deliver to the bloc in the first quarter of 2021 would be 60 percent lower than the planned 400 million. AstraZeneca had to reduce the volume of supplies due to technical production issues at its Seneffe factory in Belgium. At the same time, the company continues to deliver massive quantities of the vaccine doses produced at its two UK factories to the United Kingdom.

"Let me be clear: there is no hierarchy of these factories (2 in the UK and 2 on the continent) in the contract, no differentiation between sites in the UK and in the EU. The contract provides for the existence of additional production capacity. So that if there is a problem in a factory in Belgium, we can use the capacities of other factories in Europe or in the United Kingdom," Kyriakides said.

AstraZeneca Chief Pascal Soriot disagreed with Kyriakides and said that production at factories in the UK is reserved for London under its deal with the producer.

"We [AstraZeneca] have not made a commitment with Brussels on the delivery of the doses: it is not a contractual commitment. We said: we will do our best, without any guarantee of success," Soriot said.

With Brexit, the issue has taken a strong political turn. For many observers, the UK's exit from the EU is among the reasons for London's successful COVID-19 vaccination campaign.

The European Commission on Thursday instructed the Belgian sanitary inspection to inspect the subsidiary Novasep plant of AstraZeneca in Seneffe. The inspection's goal is to verify if it is true that the delays in delivery from the laboratory are "indeed due to a production problem on the Belgian site".

"Documents and data have been seized are under examination," a spokesperson for the Belgian Federal Agency for Medicines and Health Products (FAMHP) said.

ASTRAZENECA AGREES TO PUBLISH ITS DEAL WITH EU

On Thursday, AstraZeneca agreed to publish the terms of the contract with the European Union and said it wanted to make proposals on Friday to improve the terms, according to the German Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper. The laboratory might be able to deliver more than the 31 million doses announced out of the 80 million doses promised in the first quarter.

The European Commission has published the contract, which shows that it is wrong on every count. AstraZeneca is right when it claims that it only promised its "best reasonable efforts" to respect deadlines. The number of doses and the agenda are only "estimated". And finally, the two UK plants can indeed deliver doses to Europe, but there is no indication that they must redirect part of their production to the bloc.

"The current vaccination chaos once again reveals the completely wrong or, better said, non-existent industrial policy of the European Union," Roman Haider, a member of the European Parliament from the Freedom of Austria (FPO) political party, told Sputnik.

The EU lawmaker also condemned the bloc for not allocating enough funds to vaccine development and expansion of production capabilities.

"In addition, funding for vaccine research in the EU has declined more and more since the beginning of the millennium, although warnings have been given for a long time about the increased outbreak of viral diseases. At the turn of the millennium, two thirds of vaccine researchers around the world were still active in the EU, now it is only a fraction. The EU has been much more interested in harassing its own industry with ever new regulations and requirements," Haider said.

In addition, the lawmaker criticized European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for inaction and mismanagement of funds.

"In view of this failure, it is not to blame for the citizens to lose all trust in the EU and its top representatives. This EU Commission failed completely after its first practical test after just one year," Haider concluded.

EU'S THREAT TO HALT VACCINE EXPORTS

Kyriakides on Monday said that Brussels would now insist on being notified of any exports of vaccines from EU sites.

The media reported on Thursday, citing a leaked letter by European Council President Charles Michel, that the EU is studying an opportunity to resort to "urgent measures to ensure effective vaccine production and supply for our [EU] population."

The EU is reportedly mulling blocking the exports of the vaccine against the coronavirus developed by Pfizer to the United Kingdom to retain stable vaccine supplies for its member states.

The EU-UK "vaccine war" is further complicated by Russia's offer to provide millions of doses of its vaccine against COVID-19, Sputnik V, to the bloc in the second quarter of the year.

"Efforts would continue to resolve the matter with AstraZeneca through dialogue and negotiation. However, if no satisfactory solution can be found, I believe we should explore all options and make use of all legal means and enforcement measures at our disposal under the treaties," Michel said.

Didier Reynders, the European commissioner for justice, told the Belgian radio RTBF on Friday the commission wants to avoid a vaccine row between the EU countries and alleged that London may be eager to "start a vaccine war."

"Money talks! It could be that the European Commission has been fooled by Pfizer and AstraZeneca into paying them millions of Euros as a 'contribution to the costs of research' in exchange for a promise of large-scale deliveries of vaccines against COVID-19 without any guarantee ... If the Commission had been subjected to real democratic control by the European Parliament, someone would surely have noticed," Italian member of the European Parliament Pietro Fiocchi told Sputnik.

Fiocchi also called the EU "naive" and said that a ban on export may lead to "total chaos."

"Russian vaccines are successfully competing with the other vaccines and production in the UK could very well go somewhere else in the world. The EU fails again on the emergency response!" the EU lawmaker added.

ASTRAZENECA VACCINE'S SAFETY FOR ELDERLY

On Tuesday, the German newspaper Handelsblatt published a report which claimed that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine had shown to be only eight percent effective among elderly residents.

"AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine is currently recommended only for people aged 18 to 64," the German Vaccination Commission (STIKO) wrote on Thursday.

Germany says it will only offer the vaccine to 18-64-year-olds because there was not enough data on how it affected the senior population.

AstraZeneca immediately reacted ensuring that the latest analyses confirm the effectiveness of the vaccine among the elderly.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Thursday that he rejects the conclusions of German experts and the vaccine is safe for senior citizens.

"All laboratories producing vaccines, test them on a population mostly composed of younger generations, because their body reacts more clearly and generate more antibodies against the virus. It does not mean that the labs want to hide anything or that the vaccine is not efficient with old-age citizens, but with age, the immune response declines. It is very normal," Jean-Luc Gala, an epidemiologist at the UCLouvain university in Belgium, told Sputnik.

Gala added that vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna have shown excellent results when given to senior citizens, adding that there is "no reason that it should not be the case for the AstraZeneca vaccine."

In the end, the EU approved the use of AstraZeneca for all adult citizens, including for people who are above the age of 65. This may indicate that the decision-making process regarding vaccines may be somewhat chaotic as it reveals disagreements inside the bloc.