Warning of shortfall sparks EU concern

PARIS－A warning from Astra-Zeneca that initial supplies of its COVID vaccinations in Europe will be lower than expected has sparked fresh concern over inoculations, forcing some countries to plan for a sharp drop in deliveries.

Friday's announcement by the British pharmaceutical firm followed another last week by Pfizer, which said it would delay shipments of its vaccine for up to a month due to works at its key plant in Belgium.

The companies' warnings come amid deepening concern over new COVID-19 variants, particularly one that emerged in Britain and which is believed to be more infectious than the original strain.

The European Union has so far approved vaccines from Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech as well as from the US company Moderna. It has yet to approve the vaccine from AstraZeneca and its partner the University of Oxford, but is expected to make a decision by Friday.

AstraZeneca said that if the block's approval was granted, the "initial volumes will be lower than anticipated".

The company blamed "reduced yields at a manufacturing site within our European supply chain".

It would in any case supply the EU with "millions of doses" while ramping up production in February and March, it said.

The announcement led to "deep dissatisfaction" from member states, which "insisted on a precise delivery schedule", said European Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides.

Austria's Health Minister Rudolf Anschober called it "very, very bad news" and said his country would receive only slightly more than half the 650,000 AstraZeneca doses it had expected next month.

Legal action mulled

Italy's Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said the government was considering legal action over AstraZeneca's "unacceptable" announcement.

"If the 60 percent reduction in doses that will be distributed in the first quarter should be confirmed, that would mean that 3.4 million doses would be delivered to Italy instead of 8 million doses."

The EU initially ordered up to 400 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, and in total has secured contracts for more than two billion vaccine doses for a total population of 450 million.

A delay by Pfizer was also continuing to cause criticism. The company said on Jan 15 that factory modifications were needed to ramp up vaccine production capacity from mid-February.

On Saturday Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said that vaccinations will begin in the coming weeks.

"Foreign vaccines are a necessity until local vaccines are available," Rouhani said in televised remarks, without giving details of what foreign vaccines would be used.

Earlier this month Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei banned the government from importing vaccines from the United States and Britain.

The Indian government on Sunday said nearly 1.6 million people had been vaccinated since the beginning of the inoculation drive on Jan 16 across the country.

Agencies - Xinhua