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* UK says global lumpy supply chain causing issues
* UK vaccine roll-out will be slower than hoped
* UK says vaccine deliveries to rise from May
* UK scolds EU over vaccine ban threat
(Adds detail, reaction from companies)
By Guy Faulconbridge and Kate Holton
LONDON, March 18 (Reuters) - Britain said on Thursday that
global supply bumps meant its vaccine roll-out would be slower
than hoped in coming weeks but it expected deliveries to
increase again in May, June and July.
British health officials warned on Wednesday that the
world's fastest big economy roll-out of the vaccine would face a
significant reduction in supplies from March 29.
Pfizer Inc and AstraZeneca Plc said their
delivery schedules had not been impacted, and Housing Secretary
Robert Jenrick refused to be drawn on whether the issue was due
to a problem with supply from India.
"We have less supply than we might have hoped for the coming
weeks but we expect it to increase again later," Jenrick told
the BBC.
"The vaccine roll-out will be slightly slower than we might
have hoped but not slower than the target," he said. "We have
every reason to believe that supply will increase in the months
of May, June and July."
Britain is on track to have given a first shot to half of
all adults in the next few days, making it one of the fastest
countries to roll out a vaccine.
So far 25.27 million people in the United Kingdom have had a
vaccine, around 48% of adults, and Jenrick said Britain remained
on track to have vaccinated priority groups by April 15 and all
adults by the end of July.
"We always said right from the beginning that a new
manufacturing process would have its lumps and bumps and that
has been the case in the past and I'm sure it will be in the
future," Jenrick told Sky.
"We're sourcing vaccines from all over the world and we are
experiencing occasionally some issues and that's led to this,
this issue with some supply in the coming weeks," he said.
Asked if the issue was supply from India, he declined to
discuss specific contracts.
SUPPLY BUMP
Britain is rolling out vaccines made by Pfizer and
AstraZeneca, with 10 million doses of the 100 million ordered
from AstraZeneca coming from the Serum Institute in India.
AstraZeneca said its domestic supply chain, which produces
most of its supply for Britain, was unaffected.
"Our UK domestic supply chain is not experiencing any
disruption and there is no impact on our delivery schedule,"
said a spokesman for the firm, which makes the vaccine developed
by the University of Oxford.
The announcement of a supply shortfall coincided with a
resurgence in tensions with the European Union, which is
frustrated by a lack of exports of AstraZeneca's vaccine from
Britain.
The EU threatened on Wednesday to ban exports of COVID-19
vaccines to Britain to safeguard scarce doses for its own
citizens, and Jenrick said the threat from European Commission
head Ursula von der Leyen was disappointing.
Pfizer, which supplies Britain with shots from Europe, said
first quarter deliveries to the UK remained on track and overall
supply for the second quarter remained unchanged. Jenrick said
he hoped no barriers to the importation of vaccines would be
erected by the bloc.
"I was surprised and disappointed by those comments but the
prime minister had spoken earlier in the year to Ursula von der
Leyen and she gave a very clear commitment, which was that the
EU would not engage in this sort of activity, that contractual
responsibilities would be honoured," Jenrick said.
"And that's exactly what we intend to do and I hope and
expect the EU to stick to their side of the bargain."
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge, Kate Holton and Alistair
Smout; editing by Sarah Young and Giles Elgood)
