AstraZeneca will cut deliveries of the Oxford COVID-19 vaccine to the European Union by 60% in the first quarter of the year, according to Reuters news agency.
The company was expected to deliver around 80 million doses to the 27 EU countries by the end of March, an EU official told the agency.
However, it now expects that to be cut to 31 million doses due to “production problems” at a vaccine factory in Belgium run by its partner Novasep.
Stella Kyriakides, the European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, said on Twitter: “@EU_Commission and Member States expressed deep dissatisfaction with this.
“We insisted on a precise delivery schedule on the basis of which Member States should be planning their vaccination programs, subject to the granting of a conditional marketing authorisation.
“The @EU_Commission will continue to insist with @AstraZeneca on measures to increase predictability and stability of deliveries, and acceleration of the distribution of doses.”
The immunisation campaign has already been hampered by a temporary shortfall in the supply chain of vaccine developers Pfizer and BioNTech, who are retooling a site in Belgium to boost output.
Earlier the Financial Times reported that supplies to the UK would not be affected.