The European Union has stopped exporting the Astra Zeneca vaccine

It appears that rounds of the Swedish-British Astra Zeneca vaccine against covid-19 are continuing. Last week, the European Commission decided to temporarily stop exporting the vaccine to non-EU countries.

The decision was taken on the grounds that the company had failed to deliver on promised deliveries to the European Union at the same time that vaccines manufactured in the Union were being exported to other countries, especially the United Kingdom.

According to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Union countries have exported 77 million doses of vaccine while 88 million have been delivered to member states.

The company confirms

A ban is now being imposed on the export of Astra Zeneca vaccines manufactured in the European Union.

– The President of the European Commission clarified on Friday that there will be a complete halt of Astra Zeneca’s exports as long as they are not provided according to the contract. That’s what applies now, says Swedish vaccine coordinator Richard Bergstrom for Svenska Dagbladet.

Astra Zeneca confirmed to the newspaper that “new export restrictions are in effect from Monday.”

Swedish allocation uncertain

So far, the company has said it will only succeed in delivering about a third of the 300 million vaccine doses it promised to the European Union by the end of June. The slow pace was partly due to manufacturing problems at the company’s factory in Belgium.

According to Richard Bergstrom, it is not certain that the European Union’s ban on exports will mean that more doses will reach Sweden.