‘As if banning the shipment of 250,000 AstraZeneca doses to Australia earlier this month didn’t set a bad enough precedent, the EU went even further on Wednesday by threatening to take over AstraZeneca’s factories and strip the company of its intellectual property rights unless the pharmaceutical giant delivered more doses over the coming months.
‘European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has grounds to be upset: while Pfizer and Moderna have delivered on their first quarter commitments and pledged to deliver a combined 235 million doses in the second, AstraZeneca is dragging the chain. The firm will give the bloc only 100 million doses over the first six months of 2021 when the EU was expecting 270 million...
‘AstraZeneca certainly bears no blame for the week’s other baffling decision by some EU members to suspend the jab over unfounded safety fears.’
Read here (Sydney Morning Herald, Mar 19, 2021)
