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* Britain warns of significantly reduced supplies in April
* Delivery of Astra shots from India contributed to delay
* Serum Institute says will try to supply more vaccine later
(Recasts with prime minister)
By Guy Faulconbridge, Alistair Smout and Kate Holton
LONDON, March 18 (Reuters) - Britain will have to slow its
COVID-19 vaccine rollout next month due to a supply crunch
caused by a delay in a shipment of millions of AstraZeneca
shots from India and the need to test the stability of
an additional 1.7 million doses.
Supply constraints are the biggest threat to Britain's
vaccine rollout - currently the swiftest among the world's major
economies - and health officials warned that the programme would
face a significant reduction in supplies from March 29.
"It is true that in the short term we're receiving fewer
vaccines than we had planned for a week ago," Johnson told a
news conference, saying this was because of a delay in a
shipment from India's Serum Institute and because a batch in the
UK needed to be retested.
"As a result, we will receive slightly fewer vaccines in
April than in March, but that is still more than we received in
February, and the supply we do have will still enable us to hit
the targets we have set," he said.
Earlier, health minister Matt Hancock had said that a batch
of 1.7 million vaccine doses had been delayed as it had to be
retested for stability, though he didn't specify the
manufacturer.
Britain is using 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 Britain a few weeks ago, adding it would "try
to supply more later, based on the current situation and
requirement for the government immunisation programme in India".
Serum Institute Chief Executive Adar Poonawalla was quoted
by the Daily Telegraph newspaper as saying that supplies were
dependent on how many doses the Indian government allowed to go
to the United Kingdom.
But, with Britain already at loggerheads with the European
Union over vaccine exports, Johnson struck a conciliatory tone,
saying he did not think India had blocked any deliveries and
wanted to work with Europe too.
Pressed on whether the Indian government had stopped exports
of vaccine to Britain, Johnson said: "No, no, there is a delay
as there often is, caused for various technical reasons, but we
hope to continue to work very closely with the Serum Institute,
and indeed with partners around the world including on the
European continent."
Israel is the leader in vaccinating its population, followed
by the United Arab Emirates, Chile and then the United Kingdom -
and investors are watching closely to see which economies could
recover first.
More than half of all adults in England have had their first
COVID-19 vaccine. For the United Kingdom as a whole, just under
half of adults have had their first dose.
VACCINE ROW
While Britain tries to secure more vaccines, it is also
facing growing anger from the European Union, which on Wednesday
threatened to slap a ban on vaccine exports to
Britain.
Hancock said that European Commission head Ursula von der
Leyen should respect contract law and that Britain expected to
get the deliveries it had ordered.
"There are very significant consequences to breaking
contract law," Hancock said. Britain imports Pfizer's vaccine
from Europe.
Pfizer and AstraZeneca said on Wednesday their delivery
schedules had not been impacted. An AstraZeneca spokesman said
on Wednesday that the "UK domestic supply chain is not
experiencing any disruption".
Britain's medicines regulator said there had been five cases
of a rare type of blood clot in the brain among 11 million
people given AstraZeneca's vaccine but said that it found the
benefits of the shot far outweighed any possible risks.
Hancock denied rumours that the delays would mean no adults
would get 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 first shot by mid-April, and a shot to all adults by
the end of July. He added that a roadmap for lifting lockdown
restrictions in England was unaffected.
Earlier, housing minister Robert Jenrick said that supplies
would pick up again in May, and Moderna Inc has said it
is expecting first deliveries of its vaccine to Britain to start
in April.
Hancock said Britain expected doses of Moderna's vaccine to
arrive "in the coming weeks".
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge, Kate Holton and Alistair Smout
in London
Additional reporting by Krishna N. Das in New Delhi; Editing by
Kirsten Donovan, Giles Elgood, Nick Macfie and Frances Kerry)
