EU doesn’t renew order for AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine

The European Union did not renew its contract with AstraZeneca for its coronavirus vaccine after the bloc accused the pharmaceutical company last month of failing to deliver on its initial contract, Reuters reported.

“We did not renew the order after June. We’ll see what happens,” European Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton told France Inter radio, according to Reuters. He did not, however, dismiss the possibility of an AstraZeneca renewal at a later time.

On Friday, the European Commissioner announced it had signed a deal to receive 1.8 billion doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, according to the wire service.

The EU’s announcement comes amid months of tension between the European bloc and AstraZeneca, after the company twice said it would not be delivering the amount of vaccines to the EU that it was counting on.

The EU sued AstraZeneca last month, alleging the company failed to fulfill its coronavirus vaccine contract. 

Our priority is to ensure #COVID19 vaccine deliveries take place to protect the health of .

This is why @EU_Commission has decided jointly with all Member States to bring legal proceedings against #AstraZeneca.

Every vaccine dose counts. Every vaccine dose saves lives.

— Stella Kyriakides (@SKyriakidesEU) April 26, 2021

AstraZeneca in a statement at the time rejected the lawsuit’s allegation, contending the company was “about to deliver almost 50m doses to European countries by the end of April, in line with our forecast.”

Additionally, several countries in the EU previously paused administration of the AstraZeneca vaccine, after a potential link to rare blood clots was revealed.

Last month, the United Kingdom’s top drug regulator recommended limiting the use of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine to people older than 30.