COVID-19 vaccine supply at risk as EU and AstraZeneca rows escalate

The EU is giving member states the right to ban vaccine exports after AstraZeneca’s deliveries fell short, as the global jab row snowballs.

The European Union is giving member states the right to ban exports of vaccines amid an escalating row with British-Swedish firm AstraZeneca following a major shortfall in its deliveries.

The move comes as Germany’s vaccine commission said on Thursday it could not recommend the use of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine for older people.

The panel of scientific experts, STIKO, said the vaccine should only be used for “persons aged 18 to 65 years old based on available data”.

It said there was not yet enough data to assess the efficacy of the vaccine for over-65s.

The export controls could disrupt Australia’s rollout plan, which the government said would begin at the end of February.

AstraZeneca predicted it was still on track to deliver 1.2 million doses of its vaccine to Australia in late February, but conceded the EU had made the situation “fluid”.

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The EU is introducing a monitoring system that will allow member states to stop vaccine exports. Picture: Attila Kisbenedek / AFP

EU officials said on Thursday that member states would have the opportunity to ban shipments out of the bloc if they are not “legitimate” under the new monitoring system.

European Council President Charles Michel said in a letter to the leaders of four member states: “The EU needs to take robust action to secure its supply of vaccines and demonstrate concretely that the protection of its citizens remains our absolute priority.”

Australia’s 10 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine are being manufactured in Belgium, and the company said on Thursday that it was “ramping up its manufacturing capability”.

That could be of little use, however, if there are issues with the supply leaving the EU.

The AstraZeneca/Oxford University vaccine has not yet been granted approval for general use in the EU, but the European Medicines Agency is poised to authorise it on Friday.

The pharmaceutical firm is at loggerheads with the EU after saying it could only deliver a quarter of the doses it had promised for the first quarter of 2021 following lower than expected yields at its Belgium plant.

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Australia’s vaccine supply is being manufactured in Belgium. Picture: Geert Vanden Wijngaert/Bloomberg via Getty Images

EU officials said the export monitoring system would be compliant with World Trade Organisation rules and exports clearly defined as “humanitarian” would be exempt. It will be based on an EU law designed to regulate the export of personal protective equipment, which was hit by shortages early in the pandemic.

The EU has invested billions of euros in vaccine-making companies to secure its 2.3 billion doses of potential vaccines.

Companies wanting to export COVID-19 vaccines from the EU will now be required to contact authorities in the EU member state in which their plant was located for authorisation — but the EU said this would generally be given within “hours”.

Officials said they hoped there would be no need for export bans but conceded that a block on the export of vaccines such as those produced by Pfizer/BioNTech in Belgium for the UK was possible.

The move is likely to further stoke tensions over a challenging global vaccine rollout, with questions remaining over how and when developing countries will get the doses they need.