AstraZeneca will not be able to deliver the expected number of doses of its vaccine to European countries. Reported by Bild.
According to the German newspaper, one of the reasons for the disruption of supplies is a fire at a vaccine plant under construction in the Indian city of Pune. RIA Novosti citing Austrian media reports that Austria in the first quarter of 2021 will receive three times fewer doses than expected, 600 thousand instead of two million doses.
Earlier it was reported that the pharmaceutical company Pfizer, one of the manufacturers of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus vaccine, will reduce the supply of the drug to European countries while modernizing production. It explains that the firm is expanding its production capacity: it plans to produce 2 billion instead of the 1.3 billion doses per year that its factories are capable of now. According to preliminary forecasts, the situation will change in February.
Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Sweden and Estonia sent a letter to the European Commission, in which they were outraged by the reduction in vaccine supplies from Pfizer and BioNTech. They called on the EU’s chief executive body to put pressure on companies to achieve stability and transparency in the supply of the drug.