The European Union issued an angry warning to pharmaceutical group AstraZeneca on Monday over its unexpected delay in delivering millions of doses of its Covid-19 vaccine to the bloc.
The British-Swedish company’s announcement “is not acceptable to the European Union,” EU Commissioner for health Stella Kyriakides said after a meeting of member state representatives and the firm.
“The European Union will take any action required to protect its citizens and rights,” she stressed.
Kyriakides did not elaborate on what action Brussels might take, but she said Brussels would propose a “transparency mechanism” to track shipments of vaccine exported from the EU to non-member countries.
The unusually blunt message underscored the threat facing the 27-nation EU as it tries to ramp up so far underpowered vaccination programmes as more contagious coronavirus variants threaten a looming third wave of the pandemic.
Last Friday, AstraZeneca said it would not meet its contractual delivery commitments to the European Union because of unexplained “reduced yields” in its European supply chain.
That came a week after US group Pfizer said it was also cutting early delivery volumes of its vaccine produced with German firm BioNTech.
Together, those announcements risk up-ending EU vaccination programmes that depend on people getting two jabs weeks apart.
That would potentially trash European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen’s pledge made just a week ago to inoculate 70 percent of adults in the EU by the end of August.
