Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca will only deliver 88,000 vaccines to Belgium this week instead of the 114,000 promised, according to Flemish health minister Wouter Beke, who unveiled the figures on Tuesday in the Flemish parliament.
The news that Belgium would receive less coronavirus vaccine than expected over the next two weeks was announced by the Federal Agency for Medicines and Health Products (FAMHP) on Monday, however the exact amount was not known at this point.
"AstraZeneca announced yesterday evening, for the umpteenth time, that it would reduce the number of vaccines in the coming weeks," Beke said on Tuesday in the Flemish parliament.
"It is a huge problem, to prepare our vaccination centres operationally, but also for hospitals and centres for the disabled. It is regrettable that, for the moment, we have no stability with AstraZeneca and Moderna,” he said.
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He added that the delivery scheduled for 3 March was also decreased from 90,161 to 21,600 doses, however the company said that no further reductions in deliveries are expected from 7 March.
Beke said he wanted Europe to ensure that, from now, on deliveries are made on time.
The European Commission had already accused the manufacturer of not respecting the terms of its European contract, after it announced that it would only be able to supply a portion of the doses expected by the continent before it had made its first deliveries.
This article was updated following a statement by Flemish Health Minister Wouter Beke in the Flemish parliament.
Lauren Walker
The Brussels Times
