Global vaccine rollout at risk
The European Union’s tighter rules on exports of Covid-19 vaccines could hit shipments to some nations, deepening disputes over scarce supplies of potentially lifesaving shots.
The EU yesterday unveiled its plans to tighten rules on exports of coronavirus vaccines produced in the bloc, amid fears that some of the doses it secured from AstraZeneca could be diverted elsewhere.
The measure could be used to block shipments to many non-EU countries and ensure that any exporting company based in the EU will first have to submit its plans to national authorities.
Regulators yesterday authorised AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine for use in adults throughout the EU, amid criticism that the bloc is not moving fast enough to vaccinate its population.
The European Medicines Agency recommended the vaccine to be used in people 18 and over, although concerns have been raised that there is not enough data to prove that it works in older people, and some countries have indicated that they may not give it to the elderly.
The shot is the third Covid-19 vaccine to be given the green light by the agency, after ones produced by Pfizer and Moderna.
The EU hit out at AstraZeneca this week after the company said it would supply only 31 million doses of vaccine in initial shipments, instead of the 80 million doses it had hoped to deliver. Brussels said AstraZeneca would supply even less than that, just one-quarter of
the doses due between January and March – and member countries began to complain.
The European Commission is concerned that doses meant for Europe might have been diverted from an AstraZeneca plant on the continent to the UK, where two other company sites are located. The EU also wants doses at two sites in Britain to be made available to European citizens.
AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot said that under the British contract, vaccines produced at UK sites must go to the UK first.
To head off similar disputes
and allay fears that vaccines might be diverted, the commission introduced the export measures. They will be used until at least the end of March to control shipments to non-EU countries. Many poorer nations and close neighbours of the EU are exempt.
The World Health Organisation criticised the new EU export rules as ‘‘not helpful’’. Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and other WHO officials warned of supply chain disruptions that could ripple through the world and potentially stall the fight
against Covid-19.
The first one-shot Covid-19 vaccine provides good protection against the illness, Johnson & Johnson reported in a key study released yesterday, offering the world a potentially important new tool as it races to stay ahead of the rapidly mutating virus.
The pharmaceutical giant’s preliminary findings suggest that the single-dose option may not be as strong as Pfizer’s or Moderna’s two-dose formula, and was markedly weaker against a worrisome mutated version of the virus in South Africa. But unlike rival vaccines that must be kept frozen, it can last months in a refrigerator.
J&J plans to seek emergency use authorisation for the vaccine in the US within a week. It expects to supply 100 million doses to the US by June, and 1 billion doses globally by the end of the year.
A WHO team yesterday visited a hospital where China says the first Covid-19 patients were treated more than a year ago, as part of the experts’ long-awaited fact-finding mission on the origins of the coronavirus.
The WHO team members and Chinese officials earlier had their first in-person meetings at a hotel, ahead of field visits in and around the central city of Wuhan in the coming days.
According to China’s official account of its response to the initial outbreak, Dr Zhang Jixian first reported cases of what was then known as ‘‘pneumonia of unknown origin’’ at the hospital on December 27, 2019.
The WHO said the team had requested ‘‘detailed underlying data’’, and planned to speak with early responders and some of the first Covid-19 patients. It also planned to visit markets such as the Huanan Seafood Market linked to many of the first cases, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and laboratories at facilities such as the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control.
The team’s mission has become politically charged, as China seeks to avoid blame for alleged missteps in its early response to the outbreak. The Chinese government has promoted theories, with little evidence, that the outbreak might have started with imports of frozen seafood.