Covid, vaccines and the supply chain

As the third wave of the pandemic sweeps across Europe, the varnish seems to have “cracked” between the European Commission, mandated by the various European states to manage the supply of vaccines, and the pharmaceutical companies Pfizer/BioNTech and AstraZeneca/University of Oxford. The reason is the delay in the availability of doses for the European Union.

Stella Kyriakides, the Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, said that “the new deadlines are not acceptable to the EU. The EU has pre-financed the development of the vaccine and its production and wants to see results.” She continued: “It wants to know exactly which doses have been produced by AstraZeneca so far and to whom they have been delivered.” According to the official, “the company’s answers so far have not been satisfactory.”