AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford will supply Europe with fewer vaccines against the coronavirus than originally planned, due to a drop in production at one plant, the British group told France Press today.
AstraZeneca and Oxford's coronavirus vaccine has yet to be approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
The agency announced on January 12 that they had received a request to approve the vaccine, and then indicated that it could make a decision on January 29.
"While there is no set timeline for the delivery of our vaccine, if we receive approval in Europe, the first volumes will be less than originally planned due to a drop in production at one manufacturing site for our European supply chain," an AstraZeneca spokesperson told AFP.
The European Commission has reserved up to 400 million doses of this vaccine.
"We will deliver tens of millions of doses to the European Union in February and March, and we will continue to increase production volumes," the spokesman added, without specifying the exact quantities.
A spokesperson for the European Commission in charge of health said that AstraZeneca confirmed at a board meeting with EU member states that there will be changes in their delivery deadlines, and added that the Commission is trying to find out more about it.
The European Union and the EMA are under pressure to speed up the approval of new coronavirus vaccines.
The AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine has the advantage of being cheaper to produce than its rivals and also easier to store and transport especially than the Pfizer/BioNTek vaccine which has to be stored at very low temperatures of minus 70 degrees.
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