AstraZeneca shocks EU: vaccine is only slow to sell - "It's absurd ..."

For a long time, people around the world longed for a corona vaccine.

Also in Germany - but obviously not every serum in this country is “good enough”.

Update from January 24th, 7.12 a.m

.: The corona vaccine manufacturer AstraZeneca may face further delivery bottlenecks.

Company representatives would also have reported possible production downtimes in Europe to the European Union for the second quarter, said an EU representative on Tuesday evening of

dpa

in Brussels.

But these amounts could theoretically be made up for in other vaccine factories owned by the manufacturer.

There is still no accepted delivery schedule for the quarter.

AstraZeneca announced on

dpa

request in the evening that it wanted to fulfill the contract for the second quarter according to the latest forecast.

About half of the cans promised should come from European production.

The company will provide the rest from other parts of the world.

Where the vaccine was supposed to come from was not stated in the communication.

AstraZeneca on Covid-19 vaccine: "Working to increase productivity"

"Astrazeneca is working to increase productivity in its European supply chain and continue to leverage its global capabilities to deliver 180 million cans to the EU in the second quarter," added.

Previously, there had been media reports that the group wanted to halve delivery to 90 million cans in the second quarter

(see first report)

.

However, the Commission did not want to confirm this either.

Officially, it was said that negotiations with AstraZeneca about the delivery schedule were still ongoing.

The company is in the process of "refining and consolidating the plan, based on all available production facilities in Europe and outside".

The Commission expects "an improved proposal for a delivery schedule".

AstraZeneca shocks EU: Vaccine is only slow to sell - now there are no deliveries

Our first report from February 23

: Munich - There are constant discussions about the AstraZeneca corona vaccine *.

Doubts about the quality and effectiveness of the serum were decidedly refuted by experts.

Nevertheless, some patients seem to prefer not to have their vaccination appointment for the time being than to have the vaccine from the British-Swedish pharmaceutical company administered against the coronavirus *.

Now it became known: AstraZeneca apparently wants to limit its delivery to the EU.

In the second quarter of 2021, significantly fewer vaccine doses should go to the European Union than was actually contractually agreed.

According to a report by the

Reuters

news

agency

, AstraZeneca will deliver fewer than 90 million units to member states between April and June instead of 180 million vaccine doses.

An EU representative did not want to confirm this.

In addition, the missing quantities could theoretically be made up for from other vaccine factories of the manufacturer, it said.

It is not the manufacturer's first bad news for the EU: a few weeks ago, a delivery bottleneck brought the EU to the brink of tangible diplomatic scandal.

Corona vaccine from AstraZeneca: slow-moving in Germany despite expert praise

The situation seems bizarre: The unpopular vaccine could become scarce again.

However, there is support for the AstraZeneca product from politicians and from renowned virologists such as Professor Christian Drosten.

Drosten thinks it is much better than his reputation *, as he said in his NDR podcast.

But the reputation is only ruined ...

Because there are no scientific doubts about the AstraZeneca vaccine, politicians recently considered using the excess vaccine doses sensibly.

So far, the serum has proven to be a real slow-moving, reports from vaccination centers that vaccination appointments were missed have increased in recent days.

However, the authorities do not want to let such a valuable good as a corona vaccine go to waste.

Corona vaccine AstraZeneca: Söder cannot understand skepticism - "Really absurd"

That is why some politicians, such as Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, have already discussed a change in the vaccination plan *.

“We have to carefully weigh up this vaccination priority again.

To be honest, already in the next few weeks, when you see how much is left of Astrazeneca, ”said Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder on Tuesday evening at

Bild.de.

“It's really absurd that we have a vaccine that nobody wants.

That's pretty annoying, this Astrazeneca story.

This impression that it is not effective, and then it lies around. "

Federal Minister of Health Jens Spahn * also wants to react - like his colleagues at state level - to the AstraZeneca vaccine doses that were left behind.

Teachers should be preferred in the vaccination hierarchy.

In addition, it was announced in several federal states that they would soon be making a comprehensive range of Corona vaccinations for police officers.

The AstraZeneca vaccine would then be an option for all of these vaccinations.

Hundreds of thousands of these vaccine doses have remained unused in the federal states.

The Federal Ministry of Health said they had delivered over 1.4 million doses to the federal states.

According to the Robert Koch Institute, however, only 212,000 of these vaccine doses were injected.

The replenishment could now be a long time coming.

(kh) * Merkur.de is part of the Ippen-Digital network

List of rubric lists: © María José López / dpa / picture alliance / EUROPA PRESS