Last checked at 
* Delivery of AstraZeneca shots from India contributed to
delay
* Britain has warned of significantly reduced supplies in
April
* Serum Institute says will try and supply more vaccine
later
(Recasts with health minister)
By Guy Faulconbridge, Kate Holton and Alistair Smout
LONDON, March 18 (Reuters) - Britain is facing a squeeze on
supply of COVID-19 vaccines next month in part due to a delay in
a shipment from India's Serum Institute that is making
AstraZeneca's shot, health minister Matt Hancock said on
Thursday.
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, without
initially specifying where the problems were.
"We have a delay in a scheduled arrival from the Serum
Institute of India," Hancock told lawmakers.
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.
A spokesman for the Serum Institute said it had delivered 5
million doses to the UK a few weeks ago.
"And we will try to supply more later, based on the current
situation and requirement for the Government immunisation
programme in India," he said.
Pfizer Inc and AstraZeneca Plc said their
delivery schedules had not been impacted.
Hancock added that, separately, a batch of 1.7 million
vaccine doses had been delayed as it had to be retested, without
specifying the manufacturer.
"Events like this are to be expected in the manual in a
manufacturing endeavour of this complexity," Hancock said.
Hancock denied rumours that the delays would see no adults
receive a first dose of the vaccine in April, but said it was
important to make sure there was enough vaccine to give people a
second dose within 12 weeks of their first.
He also said that Britain was on target to offer everyone
over 50 a vaccine by mid-April, and a shot to all adults by the
end of July.
Earlier, housing minister Robert Jenrick said that supplies
would pick up again in May.
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.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge, Kate Holton and Alistair Smout
in London; additional reporting by Krishna N. Das in New Delhi;
editing by Sarah Young, Giles Elgood and Nick Macfie)
