MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th January, 2021) The ongoing rollout of vaccines against COVID-19 is a "stress test" for international solidarity, the World Health Organization's (WHO) European director Hans Kluge said Thursday, amid a fierce dispute between AstraZeneca and the European Union over planned delivery cuts.
EU officials have expressed their disapproval after AstraZeneca announced that the number of vaccine doses it would be able to deliver to the bloc in the first quarter of 2021 would be 60 percent lower than planned.
Speaking at a WHO press conference, Kluge urged European nations to show solidarity and refrain from hoarding supplies, as was seen this past spring when member states attempted to restrict the export of personal protective equipment.
"Cross-border international policy coherence could have been better, and I think we've arrived at the critical moment now also with the vaccines that we don't see the same situation as we saw in the beginning with the personal protective equipment. So it is a big stress test for solidarity that we're standing for once again," Kluge remarked.
Stella Kyriakides, the European commissioner for health and food safety, said on Wednesday that the bloc is committed to defending the integrity of its investment, and the taxpayers' money used to purchase vaccines.
Additionally, the bloc rejects the concept of "first come first served" in vaccine deals, Kyriakides stated, adding that vaccine suppliers have moral and societal responsibilities alongside their contractual obligations.
Brussels has also mused the creation of a vaccine export transparency scheme to monitor shipments of vaccines leaving the bloc.
