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April 27, 2021

EU Commission takes AstraZeneca to court for vaccine contract breach

Uganda will import five million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines next month after the discovery of new COVID-19 variants in the country, President Yoweri Museveni has said. In a televised address to the nation late Friday, Museveni said the vaccines will be used to vaccinate at least 80 per cent of the 5.5 million elderly. People below 50 years, with underlying medical conditions that are at high risk of contracting the novel coronavirus, will also be vaccinated. Uganda targets to vaccinate more than 21.9 million people who face the highest risk of the infection, including the health workers, teachers, social workers and security personnel, elderly and those with underlying medical conditions. “The government is working hard to ensure we bring another five million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine before the end of May to complete the threshold vaccination and ensure that those vaccinated before getting the second booster dose,’’ said Museveni. “Vaccines are the most effective intervention we have against COVID-19. “The government and partners are working hard to bring vaccines to most adult Ugandans to protect them and to support us to reopen the economy and get back all our children to school.’’ Henry Mwebesa, Director-General of Health Services, last week said Uganda is scheduled to receive some two million more doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines in May through the COVAX facility. Uganda has so far received 964,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines from the COVAX vaccine sharing programme and the Indian government. As of April 16, a total of 220,893 people had been inoculated with the first jab of AstraZeneca vaccine against COVID-19, according to the Ministry of Health statistics. The country has reported the emergence of the highly transmissible COVID-19 variants which were first reported in Britain, South Africa and Nigeria. The ministry’s data showed that as of April 16, Uganda had registered a cumulative total of 41,340 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 40,898 recoveries and 338 deaths.

The European Commission has started legal action against British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca due to breaches of its COVID-19 vaccine supply contract.

The EU executive branch began the process on Friday because some terms of the contract have not been respected, commission spokesperson Stefan De Keersmaecker said on Monday.

Furthermore, “the company has not been in a position to come up with a reliable strategy to ensure the timely delivery of doses,’’ the spokesperson told reporters in Brussels.

“We want to make sure that there is a speedy delivery of a sufficient number of doses that European citizens are entitled to, and which have been promised on the basis of the contract,’’ he added.

The 27 EU member states support the move, according to De Keersmaecker.

The case is to be heard in Belgian courts.

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After repeatedly revising downward the amount of doses it was expected to deliver, AstraZeneca is now aiming to deliver 70 million doses in the second quarter of the year, according to the EU executive.

This is significantly less than the 180 million the commission says the company was aiming to deliver in that period, with the entire contract covering 300 million doses.

According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control’s vaccine tracker, only 31 million doses have been distributed to the European Union and European Economic Area since deliveries began.

The row about delivery shortfalls has been running since January, when AstraZeneca announced production hiccups were affecting their EU supply chain.

Brussels was particularly frustrated that neighbouring Britain’s supply of AstraZeneca shots remained unaffected, in spite of purchase contracts dating from August 2020.

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The bloc even halted the export of 250,000 of the company’s vaccine doses from Italy to Australia, arguing it must first honour its contractual obligations to the European Union.

As a first step, the EU executive branch launched a dispute resolution process with AstraZeneca in March.

(dpa/NAN)

Vanguard News Nigeria

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