There's A Dispute Over COVID-19 Vaccine Supply, EU Doesn't Renew AstraZeneca Contract

Vaksin COVID-19 AstraZeneca. (Wikimedia Commons/gencat cat)

JAKARTA - The European Union has chosen not to renew AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine orders after next June, as the vaccine supply issues have been at the start of the year.

The decision was taken when French President Emmanuel Macron announced the EU would focus on the COVID-19 vaccine from other pharmaceutical companies in the future.

A day earlier, the European Union through the European Commission announced an agreement with COVID-19 vaccine manufacturer Pfizer/BioNTech, regarding the addition of 1.8 billion doses of vaccines through 2023.

European Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Bretón said AstraZeneca's failure to deliver the number of approved vaccines in the contract was essentially the reason why the EU began vaccinations more slowly in the first few months of 2021.

"We have not renewed the order after June. We will see what happens", Bretón said on France France Inter radio, as quoted by Eurotimes on Monday, May 10.

Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron said France and Europe would continue to use AstraZeneca's existing vaccine stockpile, to help out of the COVID-19 crisis. But future orders will focus on vaccines from other pharmaceutical companies.

He said it was because an alternative vaccine for AstraZeneca, proved more efficient to combat the COVID-19 variant.

"Who knew last fall which vaccine would work or not? I think it is a good policy to buy as many vaccines as possible with all possible solutions, which have been done by most other countries and world powers", Macron said.

Bretón said he was confident the supply problem had ended and the EU would end the year with the capacity to produce more than 3 billion vaccines a year.

Last month, the European Commission launched legal action against AstraZeneca for not honoring its contract for the provision of the COVID-19 vaccine.