Insufficient Supply of New Coronavirus Vaccine

A new source of Covid-19 vaccine will become available to Icelanders next month, but amounts initially delivered will not be as originally expected.

The Icelandic Ministry of Health has announced that in February it will take delivery of 13,800 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, assuming European regulatory approval. The new vaccine joins those already administered in Iceland, manufactured by Pfizer and Moderna.

However, next month’s contribution by AstraZeneca to Iceland’s vaccination effort will be less than 20% of what should have been delivered, RÚV estimates. Production problems are blamed for the shortfall, and the issue affects the supply of the vaccine to all EU countries.

This situation follows a similar problem with Pfizer, when a change in production methods resulted in a reduced manufacturing yield. The European Commission has been putting pressure on both AstraZeneca and Pfizer to keep to their delivery commitments.

The Ministry of Health had originally expected AstraZeneca to be the first manufacturer to have a vaccine approved, and last October signed up for 230,000 doses for Icelanders.

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