Britain to slow vaccine rollout due to supply crunch in India, testing of big batch

[webfact]

FILE PHOTO: Abida Bi receives a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine from nurse Zenub Mahood, at Bradford Central Mosque, amid the COVID-19 outbreak in Bradford, Britain, February 25, 2021. REUTERS/Jason Cairnduff/File Photo

By Guy Faulconbridge, Alistair Smout and Kate Holton

LONDON (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," Prime Minister Boris 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 while Britain was currently in the middle of some "bumper weeks of supply", a batch of 1.7 million vaccine doses had been delayed as it had to be retested for stability. He didn't specify the manufacturer.

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 (March 18).

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, but despite the spat, Johnson said people should not be anxious about supplies from the EU.

"These vaccines are a multinational effort and they are produced as the result of international cooperation and we in the UK will continue to view it in that spirit," he said.

Pfizer and AstraZeneca said on Wednesday their delivery schedules had not been affected. 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.

England's Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty said anecdotal reports suggested that some people had not turned up to vaccination appointments after the shot was suspended in some European countries, but record numbers were still being vaccinated.

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, Frances Kerry and Jonathan Oatis)

-- © Copyright Reuters 2021-03-19

 

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[Bluespunk]

33 minutes ago, webfact said:

Pressed on whether the Indian government had stopped exports of vaccine to Britain, Johnson said: "No, no, there is a delay

Yep there is no delay, because

“the Serum Institute of India, which is manufacturing the AstraZeneca vaccine, denied any delay and said there had been no agreed time-frame to deliver a second tranche of 5m doses, according to a source authorised to speak for the facility”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/18/boris-johnson-stresses-covid-vaccine-safety-as-tensions-with-nhs-spill-over?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

 

Which does make one wonder about this statement from the OP

”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.”

Edited March 19, 2021 by Bluespunk

[RobMuir]

49 minutes ago, webfact said:

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.

I knew they would stuff this up and not deliver as promised.

Old BJ just can't help himself trying to spin it into a positive despite stuffing everything up every step of the way, and having the worst death rate of any country over 12 million people, as well as developing a new UK strain that has now spread all over the world.

Never lets the truth and numbers get in the way of a good story about himself. 

[cocoonclub]

1 hour ago, webfact said:

a batch of 1.7 million vaccine doses had been delayed as it had to be retested for stability.

How dare they do that. They are destroying the trust in vaccinations. Should I also blame the NATO because, well, isn’t the UK a NATO member state? 

[rickudon]

Also their was a report (BBC i think) that many vaccine components are manufactured in the USA, but that supplies of these components to Vaccine manufacturers were being delayed, and were not readily available from elsewhere.

Quote

The US is using export controls under the Defense Production Act, first introduced during the Korean War in the 1950s, to prevent companies exporting vaccine doses or ingredients without federal government authorisation.

 

[candide]

2 hours ago, rickudon said:

Also their was a report (BBC i think) that many vaccine components are manufactured in the USA, but that supplies of these components to Vaccine manufacturers were being delayed, and were not readily available from elsewhere.

 

Right. The problem is that, at least at the component level, most countries are interdependent. So a single country decision can have systemic effects. In this case a US decision has an effect on India, which in turn has an effect on UK, which in turn will have an impact on other countries (delay future AZ exports from UK).

[Rookiescot]

Yes, yes, yes but its all the fault of the vile EU.

OK I know the EU has allowed vaccines to be sent to the UK and the UK has sent none to the EU but thats part of the vile EU's plan. They are using reverse psychology on us poor Brits.

Every day the EU gets together and plots some way of making our glorious Brexit a disaster. They lay in their beds at night just coming up with new ways to stop us dominating the world like we did. 

Dont they remember Agincourt? Or Waterloo? Or indeed how we won the second world war alone? They would all be speaking French right now if not for us. Or maybe German. Anyway the reason they all speak English is because of us. Except the French and the Germans. They have never liked us anyway. Or the Spanish. Dutch are a bit ropey as well. Belgians? Forget it. And the Danes. Look they dont like us and its not our fault. We plucky Brits are the victims here.

Yes we have had far more issues with corona that others but thats because vile Europeans spread it across the UK. Lets not blame Johnson when the fault is of the EU's making. They took all the PPE we wanted after we were late in ordering it. Never mind a public enquiry into the handling of the pandemic. We have moved on now.

Glorious leader Johnson has slain the pandemic on his own. How lucky have we been to have this Churchill like guy in charge at a time of national crises. Without him some of those contracts for PPE and track and trace might have gone to people who dont donate to the Conservative party. And where would we be then? 

[joecoolfrog]

3 hours ago, Rookiescot said:

Yes, yes, yes but its all the fault of the vile EU.

OK I know the EU has allowed vaccines to be sent to the UK and the UK has sent none to the EU but thats part of the vile EU's plan. They are using reverse psychology on us poor Brits.

Every day the EU gets together and plots some way of making our glorious Brexit a disaster. They lay in their beds at night just coming up with new ways to stop us dominating the world like we did. 

Dont they remember Agincourt? Or Waterloo? Or indeed how we won the second world war alone? They would all be speaking French right now if not for us. Or maybe German. Anyway the reason they all speak English is because of us. Except the French and the Germans. They have never liked us anyway. Or the Spanish. Dutch are a bit ropey as well. Belgians? Forget it. And the Danes. Look they dont like us and its not our fault. We plucky Brits are the victims here.

Yes we have had far more issues with corona that others but thats because vile Europeans spread it across the UK. Lets not blame Johnson when the fault is of the EU's making. They took all the PPE we wanted after we were late in ordering it. Never mind a public enquiry into the handling of the pandemic. We have moved on now.

Glorious leader Johnson has slain the pandemic on his own. How lucky have we been to have this Churchill like guy in charge at a time of national crises. Without him some of those contracts for PPE and track and trace might have gone to people who dont donate to the Conservative party. And where would we be then? 

All very amusing but the salient fact is that the UK vaccination plan has gone very smoothly , not so in much of Europe.

[gunderhill]

15 hours ago, RobMuir said:

I knew they would stuff this up and not deliver as promised.

Old BJ just can't help himself trying to spin it into a positive despite stuffing everything up every step of the way, and having the worst death rate of any country over 12 million people, as well as developing a new UK strain that has now spread all over the world.

Never lets the truth and numbers get in the way of a good story about himself. 

Considering the UK with 67  million people has  managed to dole out a huge amount of  vaccine already to over 20  million  Id  say its  almost the top country per capita for doing this, the other countries  mentioned have only  tiny  populations, Chile  19  million UAE 9  million,  but never  let the blah blah  blah

The  Uk has done very well in this respect, but keep slagging them off.

[gunderhill]

4 hours ago, Rookiescot said:

Yes, yes, yes but its all the fault of the vile EU.

OK I know the EU has allowed vaccines to be sent to the UK and the UK has sent none to the EU but thats part of the vile EU's plan. They are using reverse psychology on us poor Brits.

Every day the EU gets together and plots some way of making our glorious Brexit a disaster. They lay in their beds at night just coming up with new ways to stop us dominating the world like we did. 

Dont they remember Agincourt? Or Waterloo? Or indeed how we won the second world war alone? They would all be speaking French right now if not for us. Or maybe German. Anyway the reason they all speak English is because of us. Except the French and the Germans. They have never liked us anyway. Or the Spanish. Dutch are a bit ropey as well. Belgians? Forget it. And the Danes. Look they dont like us and its not our fault. We plucky Brits are the victims here.

Yes we have had far more issues with corona that others but thats because vile Europeans spread it across the UK. Lets not blame Johnson when the fault is of the EU's making. They took all the PPE we wanted after we were late in ordering it. Never mind a public enquiry into the handling of the pandemic. We have moved on now.

Glorious leader Johnson has slain the pandemic on his own. How lucky have we been to have this Churchill like guy in charge at a time of national crises. Without him some of those contracts for PPE and track and trace might have gone to people who dont donate to the Conservative party. And where would we be then? 

Yeah but this thread is ACTUALLY  about  vaccine rollout not  all that other drivel you've  mentioned, and as for  rollout the UK has done exceedingly  well.