Deliveries of the AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine to Europe, subject to its approval, will be smaller than expected, due to a "
drop in yield
" at a manufacturing site, the British group told AFP on Friday.
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The European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced on January 12 that it had received an application for authorization for the AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine against the novel coronavirus.
The agency then indicated that it could render its decision on January 29.
“
While there is no expected timeframe for the start of our vaccine shipments, if we receive approval in Europe, initial volumes will be lower than originally forecast due to lower yield at one site. manufacturing of our European supply chain
, ”an AstraZeneca spokesperson told AFP.
The European Commission had initially reserved up to 400 million doses of this vaccine.
“
We will deliver tens of millions of doses in February and March to the European Union, and we continue to increase production volumes.
», Added the spokesperson, without specifying the exact quantities.
AstraZeneca "
confirmed today during the meeting of the steering committee with the Member States that there would be a change in its delivery schedule
", for his part told AFP Stefan De Keersmaecker, spokesman for the European Commission responsible for health.
"
We are trying to find out more,
" he added.
The European Union and the EMA are under pressure to speed up approval of new vaccines against the virus.
The AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine has the advantage of being cheaper to produce than that of its rivals.
It is also easier to store and transport, especially that from Pfizer / BioNTech which must be stored at very low temperatures (-70 ° C).
The Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine is a “
viral vector
” vaccine
which takes as a carrier another virus (a chimpanzee adenovirus) transformed and adapted to fight Covid-19.