The suspicion, from what I have read, is that vaccines destined for the EU has been sold to someone who have payed more. Maybe not true, honestly seems too brazen, but it’s being discussed in various papers.
But it is in any case strange to read spin from Westminster accusing the EU of vaccine nationalism and also see posters here run with it, when the UK has stipulated in it’s contact with AZ, as far as I understand, that absolutely everything produced in the UK plant, shall go to the UK only. Because thats protectionism that fits better the Vaccine Nationalism label according to my understanding at least. EU is distrubuting to all countries in the union on equals grounds, hardly fitting of the nationalism label in any way.
I read one report saying that there had been an issue with the amount of raw material they had in that they now had less than they expected. It made it sound like someone accidentally knocked over a jar and spilled chimp DNA all over the place.
Given the fact that the Oxford/AZ virus is being sold at a price point that allows for minimal margins, and have been licensed remarkably cheaply and easily to so many places around the world, the accusation of corporate greed seems dubious. It strongly appears that Pfizer is seeing much higher margins for their vaccine, although the mRNA vaccine must inherently be far more expensive.
Astra-Zeneca’s strategy has been to put a plant in as many markets as possible, either its own, or by license, and serve those markets. The UK plant is consistent with that.
For the record, if you’ve taken that understanding (that the UK production is exclusively for UK use) from anything I’ve said I was just talking hypothetically. It’s quite possible that the UK government sought exclusivity of supply from AZ’s production facilities within the UK (not elsewhere) as a way of securing its supply chain. Given that the UK government effectively funded the entire process that wouldn’t be unreasonable and, of course, it’s the only major vaccine that has been made available at affordable non-profit costs to developing countries. It’s also been licensed abroad to organisations like the Serum Institute in India for mass production. Obviously the WHO effort later this year will also help provide affordable supply but there are certainly significant concerns that vaccines are not going to reach the poorest countries in sufficient quantities.
How convenient
Alright. No, I took that from a newspaper article I read this morning, that Astra Zenica says that the UK demanded that all production from the UK plant should go to the UK only. And then I thought that people running with the EU vaccine nationalism spin was strange, since it is primarily the UK that has clamped hard down on protectionism efforts here from what I understand, while the EU distributes to all countries in the union (and even without) on equal grounds.
It is terribly unfair then to say that the EU is into vaccine nationalism when the UK forces AZ not to export vaccine out of the UK plant, according to AZ.
AZ director himself says so in this article that reproduces La Republica and quotes AZ director directly: Full forvirring rundt EU-møte: AstraZeneca avviser at de trekker seg – VG
No more convenient than the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines only being able to be produced in a very small number of plants globally because of the requirements of mRNA production. The rate-limiting step is the rate-limiting step.
I will be very curious to see if the contract is indeed published.
Confirmation of B117 community spread in Canada. Index case appears to be a traveller from Britain over Christmas.
Why the hell a year in we have not established adequate control of air arrivals is absolutely beyond me. Heads need to roll, and at the highest level.
Sure hope these mRNA vaccines won’t be essentially needed in greater quantities, for mutations for example. If this is already turning kind of ugly atm, then it would get even more nasty.
It’s the same here. Many things I could talk about that I am very annoyed about concerning how the government has dealt with import infection. But it would be a very long post and I am not up for it right now.
Particularly not when all sources are in Norwegian.
Thanks for the article. That merely says that the UK has priority on AZ vaccine produced in the UK. That seems fair enough. They funded it, they ordered it first, they get priority. The article suggests that the EU are aware of this in that supplies from UK production will be made available subject to UK supply. This isn’t at all unusual and from what I have read of the Curevac APA would have been contemplated at a contractual level.
That is different to the EU stepping in and threatening to restrict the delivery of vaccines to countries legitimately entitled to them simply because their own supply has been compromised by a combination of being slow off the mark and prioritising cost rather than supply.
One thing I find rather baffling is why it has taken so long to divert Sanofi production capacity to either the Moderna or Pfizer technology. Sanofi can make mRNA vaccines, and that process is now underway, but the fact that the Sanofi vaccine was a non-starter has been plain for months, even Phase 1 trials were nowhere near as promising as the other two. The EU’s picture, and indeed the global picture, would look quite different with 100M//month coming online now rather than April-May.
So what you are saying is the EU should just accept the cut back of their percentage because of the Belgian factory problems, but other countries should get what they were promised from the exact same factory?
No, that’s not what I’m saying. AZ has advised all countries awaiting supply from vaccine production in the EU that their yields are going to be short.
To expand on that - it is evident that there are other factors as well. Such as the matter of prioritising orders to those countries that placed them earlier, perhaps had greater guarantees in their contracts, and to those where there was an agreed schedule of production. I read a comment a few days ago that said that the EU had backed loads of horses but that they had agreed schedule of deliveries assuming that several vaccines would all be approved within short order. That hasn’t happened so are now particularly compromised if there is any disruption in the delivery of the number of doses that have received approval.
Is that is what is going on? It is not clear that it is. Other countries have been advised of delays.
Yes, as the EU has as well. So far this is about transparency, as we’ve discussed before. Everything else is just sabre rattling to get AZ to give answers.
We’ll have to wait and see although this will need the AZ/EU APA and the AZ/UK APA to be published. If the AZ/EU APA mirrors the Curevac/EU APA then the EU really isn’t in a particularly strong position here.
I may be reading too much into what parliamentarians like Peter Liese are saying, rather than what the EC itself is saying. But that EC announcement that AZ was not going to attend a meeting (which they shortly refuted) is bizarre.