UK jabs ‘deal’ with AZ to secure Indian doses

EU vaccine row set to escalate over claims that AstraZeneca was allowed to supply Australia first

MINISTERS secretly allowed AstraZeneca to use its UK supply chain to produce Covid vaccines for Australia in return for access to millions of doses from India, The Sunday Telegraph can disclose. In a move that is likely to intensify the vaccine row with the EU, multiple sources have said that the Anglo-Swedish firm was given dispensation to use its domestic manufacturing capacity to produce at least 717,000 jabs for one of Britain’s closest allies.

At least two deliveries were made to Australia in February and March – when Brussels had begun imposing vaccine export controls and demanding that the UK divert some of its supply to the bloc to make up for a shortfall from AstraZeneca. The Government has repeatedly rejected the requests, while the company’s British contract is said to contain clauses preventing it from shipping UK-manufactured doses to the EU.

However, this newspaper has been told that earlier this year AstraZeneca was granted permission to export to Australia. In exchange, Britain gained access to up to 10 million doses produced by the Serum Institute of India, a producer of the AstraZeneca jab.

This was deemed acceptable because the UK contract is said to enable the company to make up any shortfall in its domestic supply by procuring doses from its other plants overseas.

Those with knowledge of the agreement said it also meant that Australia secured an earlier supply of vaccines, while the UK continued to receive the doses it needed to meet its targets.

It did not alter the total number of vaccines the UK is due to receive from AstraZeneca, which still stands at 100 million. The UK received five million of the Indian jabs in March, although it is now thought to be increasingly unlikely that India will agree to export the rest at a time when it records over 350,000 new infections per day.

It remains unclear whether Australia is the only country to benefit from such an arrangement, Officials from both the UK and Australian governments refused to comment on the grounds that the issue is “highly sensitive”.

However, Boris Johnson has confirmed that the UK will share the majority of any future surplus vaccines with Covax, the international supply scheme that aims to help poorer nations get access to jabs. The UK has placed orders with multiple vaccine producers for 517 million doses, enough to provide three doses to the entire population two and a half times over.

The disclosure of the UK-Australia arrangement is likely to enrage figures

in the European Commission, which is currently suing the company in Brussels over supply delays, which it claims are in breach of contract.

The company strongly denies this, arguing that its agreement with Brussels stipulates that it must make its “best efforts” to meet the order. On

Wednesday, EU lawyers also repeated their demands, first made in January, for AstraZeneca to begin exporting UK manufactured vaccines to the Continent.

The bloc asserts that the inclusion of two UK plants in its contract means that the company is required to comply. However, AstraZeneca says that it has no obligation to do so.

The first details of the Australia deal emerged on April 8, when the Sydney Morning Herald reported that 717,000 UK-manufactured doses had been flown to the country from Britain.

The first batch of 300,000 doses landed at Sydney Airport on February 28, with a further large delivery on an Emirates passenger plane in March.

AstraZeneca declined to comment when approached by The Telegraph.

A UK government spokesman said: “The details of any commercial vaccine supply agreement between governments and AstraZeneca are a matter for the two parties.”