German Health Minister Jens Spahn said on Tuesday he favored a restriction on exports of vaccines produced in the EU, as delays in the delivery of remedies for Covid-19 accumulate.
Read also: Vaccination: AstraZeneca put under pressure by the European Commission
“
Vaccines leaving the EU need a license so that we at least know what is produced and what is leaving Europe.
And if they leave Europe, make sure there is a fair distribution,
”Jens Spahn said on ZDF.
Commenting on the delays announced by Astrazeneca in delivering its coronavirus vaccine to the EU, he said he could understand that in a "
process as complex as vaccine production, there are sometimes problems
".
However, this must then "
concern everyone in a fair and equal manner
", he said, when there should be no delay in the supply of Britain for example.
It is not about "
the EU first, but from Europe, that is to say the fair share
", according to him.
Jens Spahn pointed out that the EU has concluded contracts with Astrazeneca and has already pre-financed the construction of new production capacity.
The European Commission has reserved up to 400 million doses of this vaccine, already in use in the United Kingdom.
Its European regulatory green light is expected for Friday.
Delays in delivery of vaccine doses
The British-Swedish group warned Friday that deliveries of its vaccine in Europe would be smaller than expected in the first quarter, due to a "
drop in yield
" on a European manufacturing site.
These delays, which come after those of deliveries of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, aroused the anger Monday of the European Commissioner for Health Stella Kyriakides, who proposed a "
transparency mechanism
" on exports outside the EU of vaccines produced on her territory. .
This question of prioritizing vaccines produced in the EU first to European countries also gives rise to a debate concerning their fair distribution in the world, where more than 2 million people have died from Covid-19 for a year.
In mid-January, the boss of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned that the world would face a "
catastrophic moral failure
" if rich countries monopolized vaccines against Covid-19 to the detriment poor countries.
WHO and the Vaccine Alliance (Gavi) have set up the Covax mechanism to distribute anti-Covid vaccines to underprivileged countries, but the system suffers from a beggar-thy-neighbor tendency of rich countries and a lack of funding.
