EU expects to receive 107m Covid-19 doses in Q1, 30m from Astrazeneca

The European Union expects to receive 107m doses of the coronavirus vaccine by the end of March, 30m of which will be of that developed by Anglo-Swedish firm AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.

Nevertheless, an EU Commission spokesperson left it abundantly clear that the volume of deliveries would still be well below Brussels' initial goal.

Brussels had aimed for the bloc to receive 120m doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine alone, on top of millions more from other providers. Delivery issues however led the EU to revise down its target to 100m doses in total.

On Wednesday, the spokesperson said the EU was set to receive 29.8m doses from AstraZeneca, alongside 67.5m of the Pfizer-BioNtech jab and a further 10m from Moderna.

A boost in deliveries was expected for the second quarter of the year, with the bloc reiterating its target of inoculating 70% of its adults by July.

The day before, another spokesperson had said that the EU's contract with Astrazeneca superseded all others.

“No other contract should supersede our contract”, the deputy chief EC spokesperson Dana Spinant, said in a daily briefing.

Her comments were in direct reference to recent claims from the UK Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, who had said that London had an “exclusivity deal” with Astrazeneca while the EU had a “best efforts contract”.

Tensions between Brussels and London had reached a crescendo after it was revealed that Astrazeneca had met its vaccine targets in the UK but was not fulfilling its obligations towards the EU.

The EU said that unless the dispute was resolved it would consider imposing sanctions on the company, possibly including an export ban on its vaccines.