EU Prepared to Block Vaccine Shipments to UK
The European Union is likely set to block COVID-19 vaccine shipments to the United Kingdom until vaccine developer AstraZeneca fulfills the terms of its contracts with the bloc, according to a senior EU official, Bloomberg reported. The move would mark an escalation in a battle for inoculations since AstraZeneca informed the bloc that it would not be able to deliver the amount of vaccines it promised for the first quarter, the report said. AstraZeneca is now expected to deliver only half of what it initially committed to by the end or March, promising 30 million shots to the EU.
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Worried that its contract with AstraZeneca, known as an Advance Purchase Agreement, would not get filled, the EU implemented an export control regime on Feb. 1 that requires vaccine exports to gain approval prior to shipment outside the EU (see 2102010012). To date, only one vaccine export has been blocked -- a shipment of over 250,000 shots to Australia, a country with very few COVID infections -- and more than 300 exports have been approved. Recently, however, rhetoric over vaccine controls has escalated amid a slow rollout in the EU and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen calling for “reciprocity” in vaccine exports -- a notable statement since the U.K. has yet to export a shot to the EU while the U.K. is the EU's largest vaccine export market (see 2103090047).