BRUSSELS: AstraZeneca Plc has informed European Union officials on Friday it would cut deliveries of its COVID-19 vaccine to the bloc by 60% to 31 million doses in the first quarter of the year due to production problems, a senior official told Reuters.
The decrease deals another blow to Europe’s COVID-19 vaccination drive after Pfizer Inc and partner BioNTech SE slowed supplies of their vaccine to the bloc this week, saying the move was needed because of work to ramp up production.
AstraZeneca was expected to deliver about 80 million doses to the 27 EU countries by the end of March, the official who was involved in the talks said.
The official added AstraZeneca planned to begin deliveries to the EU from Feb. 15, in line with original plans.
The company confirmed the drop in deliveries without giving specific details on the magnitude of the shortfall.
“Initial volumes will be lower than originally anticipated due to reduced yields at a manufacturing site within our European…