A vaccine war has erupted between Britain and the European Union with Brussels demanding that tens of millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses earmarked for Britain, and made by a British pharmaceutical company, be diverted to Europe to make up for a shortfall in promised deliveries.
The demand marks a sharp political turn in a dispute between the EU and drug company AstraZeneca, as well as underscoring the mounting risks of vaccine nationalism. It was triggered after the pharmaceutical giant announced it would have to cut vaccine doses scheduled for delivery to Europe before the end of March from 80 million to 31 million.
The reduction will add woes to an EU inoculation program that has gotten off to a sluggish and at times chaotic start, with only two doses being administered so far for every 100 Europeans, compared to seven in America and 11 in Britain.
Bureaucratic missteps and a shortage of vaccine doses have prompted frustration across the continent. Hungary is planning to break ranks with other EU countries to order supplies of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, which has not been authorized by EU medicine regulators.
Brussels's health commissioner Stella Kyriakides midweek said that as AstraZeneca is blaming production challenges at factories in Europe for the shortfall on contracted doses, supplies manufactured by the drug company in Britain should be redirected to Europe. The British government’s order for doses predates the contract the EU signed with AstraZeneca by three months.
“We reject the logic of ‘first come, first served' — that may work at the neighborhood butchers but not in contracts,” she said Wednesday. After a meeting with AstraZeneca, Kyriakides said she regretted “the continued lack of clarity on the delivery schedule” and expects “the fast delivery of the quantity of vaccines that we reserved.”
AstraZeneca says it has outlined the “complexities of scaling up production” of the vaccine but will “continue our efforts to bring this vaccine to millions of Europeans at no profit during the pandemic.”
British ministers had until Thursday tried to stay out of the argument between the EU and the pharmaceutical giant, but the EU demand for the diversion of doses has prompted a political and media outcry in Britain, deepening the post-Brexit conflict.
British tabloid front pages expressed outrage. “WAIT YOUR TURN! SELFISH EU WANTS OUR VACCINES,” announced the . Tabloid rival the headline said: “NO, EU CAN’T HAVE OUR JABS!”
British officials insist that Britain's vaccine order should not be impacted by the EU's troubles with deliveries.
“I think we need to make sure that the vaccine supply that has been bought and paid for, procured for those in the UK, is delivered,” Michael Gove, a senior minister told London’s LBC radio station. “Our priority has to be making sure that the people in our country who are vulnerable and who we have been targeted for vaccination, receive those jobs in those arms.” Gove said there can be no interruption to Britain’s inoculation program.
The deepening argument also has prompted threats from EU lawmakers to block exports of Pfizer’s vaccine from its production facility in Belgium destined for Britain. A senior German MEP raised the prospects of a “trade war” between Britain and the EU.
Peter Liese, a member of the European Parliament’s health committee, told Euronews that European citizens were being “treated as second class by a UK-based company.” He added: “the company and the UK better think twice.”
The risk of vaccine nationalism was highlighted Tuesday by the World Health Organization's director-general, but his focus was on the vaccine divide between rich and poor countries. “With every day that passes, the divide grows larger between the world's haves and have-nots,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in remarks at a WHO executive board meeting in Geneva.
But the dispute between Britain and the EU has underscored that bouts of vaccine nationalism can also break out between wealthy countries, too, which are desperate to get as many of their citizens vaccinated as soon as possible.
Britain’s inoculation program is off to a flying start. Britain has vaccinated about 13 percent of its adults, while the EU average is barely over two percent, and the gap is growing. British regulatory authorities were quicker in approving vaccines and were ahead in signing contacts with a variety of suppliers.