Covid-19 roundup: Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion sues As­traZeneca over vac­cine sup­plies; South Africa re­sumes J&J vac­cine tri­al

The Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion said Mon­day that it’s tak­ing le­gal ac­tion against As­traZeneca for fail­ing to pro­vide a suf­fi­cient num­ber of vac­cine dos­es as out­lined in its con­tract.

Our pri­or­i­ty is to en­sure #COVID19 vac­cine de­liv­er­ies take place to pro­tect the health of 🇪🇺.

This is why @EU_Com­mis­sion has de­cid­ed joint­ly with all Mem­ber States to bring le­gal pro­ceed­ings against #As­traZeneca.

Every vac­cine dose counts. Every vac­cine dose saves lives.

— Stel­la Kyr­i­akides (@SKyr­i­akidesEU) April 26, 2021

As­traZeneca’s con­tract with the EU al­lowed for the pur­chase of 300 mil­lion dos­es, with an op­tion for 100 mil­lion more. But on­ly 30 mil­lion dos­es were de­liv­ered in the first quar­ter of 2021, ac­cord­ing to the AP, and the com­pa­ny says it can pro­vide 70 mil­lion in the sec­ond quar­ter, rather than the 180 mil­lion it had promised.

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