Since the introduction of vaccines against Covid-19, many questions have been added to those that the whole world has been asking for a year: What are the side effects? What are the differences between the products of Pfizer, Moderna or AstraZeneca? Will we be able to choose the brand of our vaccine? Is there a risk of a shortage of doses in France? And the list is still long. Tuesday January 26, 2021, Olivier Véran confirmed the late delivery of the AstraZeneca vaccine… which will only provide half of the doses expected for France by the end of March. The Minister of Health mentions in particular a “drop in yield ” in a factory of the British group. The next day, Wednesday January 27, Agnès Pannier-Runacher provided additional explanations on the set of Telematin.
“We must not leave in the fantasy ”
“I requested that there be an inspection of the AstraZeneca factory. Either there is an industrial problem, and it is better for everyone to come together to resolve it, or there is an export problem. In this case, the European Union can take measures to control or even authorize exports ", said the Minister for Industry, in front of the cameras of France 2. Journalist Caroline Roux then wonders if AstraZeneca will not make the decision to deliver in priority “Countries that pay more” rather than honoring its European contracts. This is what some suspect … but not the minister. “I don't know if we are there yet. I think we shouldn't go too far into the fantasy”, believes Agnès Pannier-Runacher.
“AstraZeneca had told us for the past three weeks that they were having difficulty increasing their capacity. It's not a drop in industrial production, it's not rising at the expected rate. It's an industrial launch, it takes time”, explains the minister, before specifying that the pharmaceutical group was initially to provide 2.7 million doses to France for the month of February alone. Eventually, this figure will be reduced to 2.5 million. “What interests us is what will happen in March, in April … We need this matter to be resolved quickly, and doubts about the destination of the doses must also be quickly resolved. It’s a matter of days ”, concludes Agnès Pannier-Runacher finally.
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