BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Pfizer has yet to deliver to the European Union about 10 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine due in December, EU officials said, leaving it about a third short of the sources it expected now from the USA. company.
The delay is another blow to the EU, which has also been hit by delays in deliveries from Anglo-Swedish drug dealer AstraZeneca and US company Moderna, and they had also been earlier delay in the Pfizer vaccine.
It also raises questions about the rationale for the EU vaccine export control scheme, which was set up in late January to ensure timely delivery but has not yet been implemented, despite the shortage of supply. .
By the middle of last week, Pfizer had delivered 23 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine it developed with the German company BioNTech, said an EU official directly involved in talks with the US company.
That was about 10 million fewer doses than Pfizer had promised by mid-February, said a second official who is also involved in the talks.
Pfizer declined to comment, saying delivery schedules were confidential. The European Commission did not respond actively to a request for comment on delivery deficits.
EU officials have said Pfizer is promising to deliver 3.5 million doses a week from the start of January, for a total of 21 million views by mid-February.
In mid-January, there was a temporary lump in supply that EU officials say was largely resolved last month. But many expected doses in December are still missing, two EU officials said.
The Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine was approved for use in the EU in December. 21. The next day, BioNTech said the companies would send to the EU 12.5 million doses by the end of the month.
Only about 2 million of those doses due in December were delivered, according to Reuters calculations.
The shortage would be about 30% of the total stocks pledged for the period from December to mid-February.
One EU official said the company was committed to delivering the required doses by the end of March.
The EU has two treaties with Pfizer to deliver 600 million doses of vaccine.
TRADE FLOWERS
Although EU supply itself has become scarce, the European Commission has approved all applications for the export of COVID-19 vaccines – mainly from Pfizer / BioNTech – since setting up the equipment to monitor keep streams.
In the period between Jan. 30 and Feb. 16, the EU gave the green light to 57 requests for vaccine exports to 24 countries, including Britain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a Commission spokesman said Wednesday.
Prior to the establishment of the surveillance scheme, the bloc had sent out millions of vaccines to Israel, Britain and Canada among others, most of them Pfizer, according to practice data cited in an EU document seen by Reuters.
Israel has introduced its first vaccine dose to more than 75% of its population, figures from Our World in Data, based at Oxford University. The figure for the UAE is around 50% and for Britain it is over 20%.
On average, EU countries have vaccinated only about 5% of their population, according to our Data World.
Countries with a high number of inoculations are already vaccinating people who are not among the most vulnerable, while those most in need have not been shot elsewhere.
The World Health Organization has set the target of including 20% of the population of poor countries by the end of the year.
Reporting by Francesco Guarascio @fraguarascio, Edited by Timothy Heritage