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* Under EU contract Astra committed to at least 80 mln shots
in Q1
* EU funded two UK plants under deal with AstraZeneca
-sources
* AstraZeneca says UK has priority for doses produced there
By Francesco Guarascio and Sabine Siebold
BRUSSELS, Jan 29 (Reuters) - AstraZeneca has offered the
European Union 8 million more doses of its COVID-19 vaccine this
quarter, which the EU has deemed inadequate because it would
still leave a large shortfall from what was originally expected,
an EU official told Reuters.
Last week the Anglo-Swedish firm unexpectedly announced cuts
in supplies to the EU, citing production problems at a Belgian
factory. EU officials said that meant a 60% cut to 31 million
doses in the period to end-March.
The EU official directly involved in talks with the company
said that AstraZeneca had later offered to increase
deliveries to possibly 39 million doses in the first quarter,
which the EU considered insufficient.
Under a contract agreed in August the company should have
supplied at least 80 million doses to the EU in that period, the
official said, and possibly even 120 million "depending on how
you read the contract".
A second EU official said in a media briefing on Wednesday
that the company had proposed to supply a quarter of the agreed
volume of doses through March, which in the contract amounted to
a "three-digit" figure - which is consistent with the nearly 40
million out of a total of 120 million mentioned by the first
source.
AstraZeneca's chief executive Pascal Soriot told newspapers
on Tuesday the company had no legal requirement to deliver to
the EU on a precise timetable, because it had only committed to
supplying vaccines under a best-effort clause.
At a meeting on Wednesday with EU officials, Soriot repeated
this argument and made no new offer of extra doses from the 39
millions pledged earlier in the week, the first EU official
said.
($1 = 0.8261 euros)
(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio @fraguarascio; Additional
reporting by Sabine Siebold, Paul Sandle and Ludwig Burger;
editing by Catherine Evans)
