EU Vaccine Rollout in Disarray as Germany Touts Export Limits

(Bloomberg) -- Germany urged the European Union to limit vaccine exports as a worsening standoff with AstraZeneca Plc and underwhelming inoculation campaigns threaten to prolong recession-inducing lockdowns across the bloc.

An export limitation for vaccines produced in the EU would “make sense,” German Health Minister Jens Spahn said Tuesday in an interview on ZDF television. Vaccines leaving the EU “need a license, so we know at least what’s produced in Europe and what leaves Europe, where it goes, and if there’s fair distribution,” he said.

The comments come after the European Commission on Monday proposed requiring drugmakers to flag exports of coronavirus vaccines in advance. The so-called “transparency mechanism” follows a disclosure by AstraZeneca that planned deliveries of its Covid-19 jab would face delays.

The EU’s executive arm says that this would mean significantly fewer deliveries this quarter than what was foreseen in the advance purchase agreement struck between the two sides last summer. The setback follows a production disruption at a Pfizer Inc. factory in Belgium that reduced vaccine deliveries to member countries last week.

The news threatens to derail EU’s vaccination campaign, which already lags behind the U.S. and the U.K. in terms of the share of the population immunized so far. Britain’s vaccine minister warned the EU against engaging in “vaccine nationalism”, as he said Britain is confident of hitting a mid-February target to inoculate its most vulnerable citizens despite a row that threatens supplies.

“I have every confidence we will get our deliveries as scheduled,” Nadhim Zahawi said Tuesday on LBC Radio, responding to the EU’s proposal, which could disrupt deliveries of the Pfizer shot. “Vaccine nationalism is the wrong way to go.”

Alongside the delivery standoff, AstraZeneca was forced to defend its shot, dismissing a German newspaper report that its vaccine is only effective for 8% of people older than 65.

A report by Handelsblatt late Monday, which cited unidentified sources in Germany’s ruling coalition, is “completely incorrect,” an AstraZeneca spokesman said. A spokesperson for the University of Oxford, which jointly developed the vaccine, said “there is no basis for the claims of very low efficacy.” Germany’s health ministry also dismissed the report.

The European Medicines Agency is expected to approve the vaccine as early as this week. The U.K. has already authorized its use.

Fair Distribution

The EU has also fared much worse than many Asian countries in taming the spread of the epidemic. Rather than easing restrictions, countries across the continent are preparing longer and stricter lockdowns.

The commission proposed Monday further curbs on travel and a reinforcement of stay-at-home measures, just as a series of meetings with AstraZeneca over vaccine-delivery delays failed to diffuse the situation. A new meeting between the two sides is scheduled on Wednesday, two days before the EU’s drugs regulator is expected to approve the company’s jab.

While issues in a complicated process like vaccine production may occur, Spahn raised concerns about the burden being unfairly distributed.

“All have to be impacted in a fair and equal way,” Spahn said. “This isn’t about EU first, but Europe’s fair share.”

With a string of bad news delaying a return to normality, EU governments are eager to dodge the blame. Last week, a group of leaders vented at the bloc’s drugs regulator over what they said is a slow process for approving vaccines, while others have accused the commission of failing to secure suffficient doses early enough on behalf of member states.

“We could deliver many more vaccines, we just don’t have access to them,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said at a virtual panel of the World Economic Forum on Monday.

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