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EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides
Photo: Yves Herman / dpa
The pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca is initially delivering less corona vaccine to the EU than planned.
If AstraZeneca receives EU approval, the amount will be lower at the beginning, said a spokeswoman for the British-Swedish company on Friday when asked.
The reason is lower production at one location in the European supply chain.
The group did not initially provide exact figures.
The news agency Reuters reports, citing a high-ranking EU employee, from the initial 80 million vaccination doses announced in the first quarter to 49 million.
That would correspond to a reduction of up to 60 percent.
In this case, Germany would also receive millions less doses.
EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides was angry on Friday evening.
The company announced the delivery problems on Friday in the steering committee for the EU vaccination strategy, the politician said.
The EU Commission and member states have expressed “deep dissatisfaction” with the fact that less vaccine should be delivered in the first quarter than planned.
It was insisted that there was a precise delivery schedule on the basis of which Member States could plan their vaccination programs.
The EU Commission will continue to urge more reliability in deliveries and accelerated distribution of the cans.
A spokesman for the Federal Ministry of Health said on request: “We continue to assume that the AstraZeneca vaccine will be approved for the EU at the end of next week.
The EU has invested a lot in the pre-production of this vaccine.
After approval, it will be clear how much vaccine will also be available for Germany and when. "
Slow vaccination rate in Germany
AstraZeneca developed the vaccine together with Oxford University in the UK.
It is already in use in the UK.
Approval in the European Union is also expected for the coming week.
A few days ago, a delivery bottleneck for the vaccine from the manufacturers Biontech and Pfizer became known.
The background to this is rebuilding in a Pfizer bottling plant in Belgium.
In several EU countries there was great resentment because vaccination plans had to be changed.
In Germany, too, it is not possible to continue vaccinating as originally planned.
Several federal states have stopped assigning new vaccination appointments or postponed vaccination appointments that have already been made by several weeks.
Germany started comparatively slowly with vaccinations anyway.
Since the start of the vaccination campaign on December 27, 1.5 million vaccine doses were administered until Friday afternoon.
The new delivery problems could slow down attempts to increase the pace.
Federal Minister of Health Jens Spahn (CDU) had originally announced internally that everyone in Germany would be offered a vaccination by the end of the second quarter.
Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) expressed herself much more cautiously on Thursday: If everything goes as promised, it will be possible to "offer every citizen a vaccination offer by the end of the summer."
However, she pointed out that the calendar runs until September 21st.
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stk / dpa / Reuters
