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Pharmaceutical AstraZeneca has again reduced the number of vaccines it will deliver to the European Union in the first quarter of the year.
According to a document dated March 10 to which the Reuters agency has had access, the Anglo-Swedish company will deliver 30 million doses by the end of March, a third of what was contemplated in the initial contract signed with the EU and 25% less than what the company promised less than a month ago.
On February 25, AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soirot assured the European Parliament that 40 million vaccines would be ready by the end of March.
The document, which was given to various European officials, also specifies that AstraZeneca will deliver 20 million doses in April.
The European Commission acknowledged this Monday that between April and June it only expects 300 million doses to be distributed, 20% less than expected.
But this estimate did not include the Astrazeneca cut.
Until that day, 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 (that of Janssen) that was approved this Thursday .
The European Commission has a reserve contract with Johnson & Johnson (J&J) for up to 400 million doses, available to all 27 Member States in proportion to their population.
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, however, has been a headache for the EU since its inception.
Last week, the Italian government banned the company from exporting nearly a quarter of a million doses that were to be shipped to Australia.
With this veto, 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, was released.
The problems with the drug company don't end with the batch delivery commitment.
This Thursday the Public Health Commission of the Interterritorial Council of the National Health System postponed in Spain the decision to extend the age range to inject the AstraZeneca drug to people between 55 and 65 years old until the European Medicines Agency (EMA by its acronym in English) evaluate and judge the possible adverse effects of this drug.
This decision was made after Denmark, Norway and Iceland temporarily suspended vaccination with AstraZeneca after several cases of thrombi in the EU.
In addition, seven other European countries - Austria, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Italy and Romania - have paralyzed the administration of that batch.
In addition, Thailand has announced this Friday that it will stop injecting it.
"The position of the EMA safety committee is that the benefits of the vaccine continue to outweigh the risks and can continue to be administered while the cases of thromboembolic events are investigated," the agency said in a statement on Thursday.
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