Boxes of AstraZeneca vaccine doses at a vaccination center in Rome in February.Cecilia Fabiano / AP
The European vaccination campaign will not reach the expected speed in the second quarter either.
The European Commission has recognized this Monday that between April and June it only expects 300 million doses to be distributed, 20% less than expected.
Until now, Brussels hoped to receive 300 million from the three pharmaceutical companies with authorized vaccines (Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca) and reach 380 million with the probable incorporation of a fourth (Janssen's).
But the figures have been revised downwards and, according to the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, in an interview with German media, finally only 300 million will be received in total during the second quarter, far from the 380 millions to which they aspired after the arrival of Janssen.
Commission spokesman Eric Mamer confirmed the new calculation: “We do not distinguish between approved or pending vaccines.
This is the total number of deliveries estimated for the second quarter ”.
"The best vaccine is the one that reaches my arm first"
The Commission refuses to provide release data by company, but all eyes turn to AstraZeneca in the absence of 80 million doses also during the second quarter.
And the figures are not definitive, so the hole could be even larger if there is a mishap in European production or if the import from third countries, which has been proposed as an alternative, does not finally materialize.
The setback of the distribution in the second quarter is added to the bump in the first, in which it is estimated that 37% less will be distributed than expected, reaching only 100 million.
BioNTech and Pfizer had to slow their production at the beginning of the year to adapt the manufacturing lines, but he estimates that it will make up lost ground.
AstraZeneca, on the other hand, will only dispatch 40% of what was contracted in the first quarter and in the second it will have to resort to EU production, but it will still fall short.
In total, the EU expects to receive some 55 million doses in March (in addition to 18 million in January and 33 million in February).
Von der Leyen estimates that the rate will double from April, with 100 million doses per month in total.
If the forecast is met, the EU will receive 400 million doses during the first half.
The EU has proposed to vaccinate 255 million people (70% of the adult population) before the end of the summer, a goal that, according to the Commission, is still feasible.
Exporter ban
But European countries are becoming increasingly uneasy about supply failures, particularly from AstraZeneca.
Last week, the Italian government banned the company from exporting nearly a quarter of a million doses it was preparing to Australia.
The veto marked the premiere of the European Regulation for the authorization and control of vaccine exports approved by the European Commission in a hurry in January after learning that AstraZeneca would not dispatch the contracted doses.
Brussels immediately endorsed the Italian veto.
And President Von der Leyen has been firmly in favor of repeating the ban in all EU countries as long as the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company does not comply with the provisions of the contracts.
While AstraZeneca "cannot explain why it does not ship in Europe, we have a problem seeing that the doses produced here in Europe go elsewhere," said Von der Leyen, according to statements collected by
Bloomberg
.
The president has warned that "if a company does not dispatch, we cannot allow its exports."
And he pointed out that, in the first quarter, "AstraZeneca is delivering less than 10%" of what was initially planned.
AstraZeneca is one of the six companies with which the Von der Leyen executive signed purchase reserve contracts for a total of 2.6 billion euros.
With the pharmaceutical problem, in particular, Brussels reserved the possibility of acquiring 400 million doses, payable by the Member States once delivered.
Brussels expected the company to deliver at least 100 million doses between January and March.
But after reporting production problems, it pledged to deliver 17 million in February and 23 million in March, figures that are also in doubt judging by the current delivery rate.
AstraZeneca has shipped just over 10 million doses in all 27 Member States, according to data from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.
Between Germany and France alone, BioNTech and Pfizer have delivered more than 13 million doses.
And in Spain, four million compared to 1.1 million for AstraZeneca.