01/25/2021 17:04
Clarín.com
World
Updated 01/25/2021 17:04
The British pharmaceutical AstraZeneca, which is developing a vaccine against the coronavirus together with the University of Oxford, and the American pharmaceutical company Pfizer have been targeted by the European Union due to delays in the delivery of vaccines against the coronavirus and threatens to initiate legal action
The European Commission indicated this Monday, after a meeting with the president of AstraZeneca, that his explanations about the delays announced in the deliveries of the vaccines
"are not satisfactory"
, so it called him to a new meeting tonight and threatened to undertake "Actions".
"The European Commission wants to know exactly what doses have been produced and where by AstraZeneca so far, and
to whom or where they have been delivered.
The responses from the company have not been satisfactory for now. And so another meeting has been called this night ", stated at a press conference the European Commissioner for Health, Stella Kyriakides.
The Community Executive also announced that the European Medicines Agency (EMA), which planned to give its opinion on the vaccine of that British pharmaceutical company and the University of Oxford on January 29, could carry out this evaluation "this week ".
Brussels, tendered contracts with vaccine developers on behalf of the EU countries, was informed last Friday by AstraZeneca that would
not comply with the signed deliveries and in the coming weeks would
receive
"considerably lower doses than those agreed"
, said the official.
The European Commissioner for Health, Stella Kyriakides, this Monday at a press conference.
Photo: Reuters.
"These deadlines are not acceptable for the EU," Kyriakides added after the meeting of the 27 technicians and the Commission with the president of AstraZeneca, Pascal Soriot, who this morning the president of the Commission had asked for an explanation by phone. European, Ursula Von der Leyen.
Brussels bought 300 million doses from that laboratory, as well as another 100 million additional doses,
enough to vaccinate 200 million people.
"The European Union has pre-financed the development of the vaccine and its production and wants to see the return (...).
The EU wants the doses signed and pre-financed as soon as possible and we want the contract to be fully respected
," added the commissioner, who He pointed out that the EU has allocated a total of 2,700 million euros to finance pharmaceutical companies.
Added to this is also the doubts about Pfizer-BionTech, which a few days ago said it would deliver fewer doses than planned to the 27 EU countries at the end of January and the beginning of February.
The reason it offered for doing this is because it
was going offline its Puurs (Belgium) manufacturing plant to improve its production capacity.
"We intend to enforce the contracts signed by pharmaceutical companies" and "we will use all legal means at our disposal," said Charles Michel, President of the EU European Council.
Without concrete threats, the Commission did reserve the right to take "whatever action is necessary to protect its citizens and their rights."
The Italian Government, on the other hand, has announced that it will take the pharmaceutical company to court for breaching its contracts, as it has already done with the Pfizer and BioNtech consortium.
That country estimates that it will receive 3.4 million doses instead of eight million as stipulated in the first quarter of the year.
With information from EFE
Look also
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