Under pressure, Europe attacks Britain due to lack of vaccine – March 17, 2021 – World – KSU

Suffering from slow vaccination, “seeing the summit of Covid’s third wave rise”, the European Union raised it to Britain on Wednesday (17). Of the vaccine.

“We are at stake in the century, and human life, civil liberties, and our economy depend on the speed of vaccination. Ursula von of the European Commission (EU Administration)・ Chairman Dare Leyen said:

Among “all possible tools” are restrictions on exports to countries of manufacture or highly vaccinated countries. And among the highly vaccinated manufacturers, the cited target was a neighboring country (and recently divorced from the EU in Brexit).

According to Von der Leyen, the European Union has already exported about 10 million doses of vaccine to the UK, but the UK factory has not shipped the vaccine for this block. In response, the EU said it would not eliminate or suspend intellectual property rights (measures opposed at the WTO meeting).

“All options are being considered,” said von der Leyen, after recalling that patent infringement had already been used by Block in the 1970s.

At the heart of the controversy is the ongoing suspension of delivery of vaccines produced by AstraZeneca under the control of Sweden and the United Kingdom to the European Union.

The company promised 90 million doses in the first quarter of this year, but was subsequently notified that it was only available 40 million times, offering only 30 million doses, one-third of the contract.

The second quarter contract provides for 180 million doses, but the manufacturer plans to do 70 million doses.

Supply shortages are one of the reasons for the poor performance of vaccination in the European block, especially compared to the relative success of the UK. However, this is far from the only or major one, as vaccines are still in stock in the refrigerator in some countries.

By Wednesday, the block used only an average of 46% of the approximately 14 million doses already received by AstraZeneca countries, according to the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Another reason the British campaign so far has become more effective is the fact that the government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson signed and approved the vaccine about a month before the European Union.

By the end of December, when European regulators first approved, the UK had already given citizens hundreds of thousands of daily doses, both AstraZeneca and Pfizer / Bio NTech, developed and manufactured by the EU. I was injecting. ..

The vaccination program in the UK countries started immediately, in addition to starting at the forefront, with a simplified one-stop planning system and an intensive communication campaign.

In contrast, in Europe, block regulators responsible for assessing drug safety and efficacy recommended its use, but governments implemented different access rules and logistic structures in the elderly. Prevents the use of AstraZeneca vaccine. All adults, no restrictions.

As a result, the UK has already been vaccinated 40 times per 100 people, almost four times as much as the European Union, which injects 11 out of 100 people on average.

Disagreements over AstraZeneca’s products have increased public anxiety at a time when vaccination intentions were rising in countries like France where there were large opposition to vaccination.

The new decision to stop using AstraZeneca’s immunosuppressive drug “just in case” was a scoop. In a BMFTV study conducted shortly after the announcement, only 20% of French responded that they believed in immunosuppressive drugs.

The European Commission has refused to comment on the closure announced by nearly 20 of its members, a move that is politically motivated even within the EU.

In Belgium, where vaccinations have not been suspended, spokesman Yves van Resem said there were few reports of the problem that “stopping the campaign is more damaging than anything else.”

“In most countries around us, the decision was made by politicians, not by the medical safety agency itself,” he said.

In the controversy, Boris Johnson came up earlier as an example of the safety of the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine.

On Wednesday, a conservative parliamentarian asked about the cause of “clear disinformation and scientific evidence abandonment in some EU member states.”

“I think the best thing I can say is that I finally learned to give my injection right away. It will definitely be Oxford / AstraZeneca,” he replied.