EU, ASTRAZENECA CONTINUE TO ARGUE OVER DELAYS IN VACCINE SHIPMENTS

A war of words between the European Union (EU) and AstraZeneca escalated as the two sides argued in public over coronavirus vaccine delays that threaten the bloc's fragile recovery from the pandemic, Charles Riley, Nada Bashir and Julia Horowitz reported for CNN Business.

The dispute began on Monday when EU officials said they had been told by AstraZeneca that the company intended to supply "considerably fewer" doses in the coming weeks than had been agreed because of production problems.

The European Commission has ordered 400 million doses on behalf of EU member states and is poised to start rolling them out across the bloc once the vaccine is approved, possibly this week.

"Pharmaceutical companies and vaccine developers have moral, societal and contractual responsibilities which they need to uphold," EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides told reporters.

"The view that the company is not obliged to deliver [vaccines] ... is neither correct nor acceptable… We are in a pandemic. We lose people every day. These are not numbers, they are not statistics, these are persons, with families, with friends and colleagues." she added.

Germany marked one year since the virus arrived, with the country showing no signs of reduced infections.

Portugal reported a record number of daily deaths in the past 24 hours. Strict lockdowns are in force in countries around the bloc.

The harsh rebuke from the European Union came after AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot said the company had agreed to make its "best effort" to deliver the doses EU countries had ordered but was not contractually committed to a schedule.

In a statement, AstraZeneca said it still intended to deliver tens of millions of doses to EU countries in February and March.

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