29 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine “located” in Italian factory / Article / LSM.lv

Italian authorities have discovered 29 million doses of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine in a pharmaceutical plant near Rome, which was to be sent to Britain, the Italian newspaper La Stampa reported.

The issue of supply of Covid-19 vaccines has caused major disputes between the European Union and the United Kingdom, because the two sides accuse each other of “vaccine nationalism”: trying to keep all Covid-19 vaccines produced for themselves and make it more difficult to export vaccines to other regions.

European Commission officials complain that more than 10 million doses of AstraZeneca have been shipped to the UK from EU pharmaceutical companies, but that European Union countries have received absolutely nothing from the UK.

European Commission President Urzula von der Leiena last week threatened to suspend exports of AstraZeneca vaccines, if EU countries do not receive their supplies first.

AstraZeneca was due to deliver 90 million doses of the vaccine to European Union countries in the first quarter of this year, but only 30 million are likely to be delivered in reality. Less than half of the promised volume could also be delivered in the second quarter.

In the European Union, vaccination against Covid-19 is much slower than in the United Kingdom, where more than half of the adult population has already been vaccinated.

Italian police carried out inspections at the Catalent plant where they visited 29 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine. According to La Stampa, these vaccines may have been produced at the Halix plant in the Netherlands, but have been filled and packaged at the Italian plant before being sent to vaccination centers.

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