MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th February, 2021) About 80 percent of doses of the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca delivered to the European Union have not been used yet, The Guardian reported, citing its own investigation.
The media outlet studied data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and other official sources and concluded that 4,849,752 of the 6,134,707 doses distributed among the 27 member states have not yet been administered.
According to the publication, the decision of the authorities of France, Germany, Poland and Italy to administer the AstraZeneca vaccine only to people under 65 is an important factor in a slow pace of using the drug. "Bad publicity" about the vaccine also forced some people to reject the drug.
The media outlet notes, citing the ECDC data, that Belgium received 201,600 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, but only 9,832 shots (4 percent) were administered. Bulgaria received 117,600 doses and has made 2,035 injections (1.73 percent), and 1,452,000 doses of the vaccine were delivered to Germany, but only 189,206 doses (13 percent) were administered.
At the same time, more than 80 percent of the delivered Pfizer vaccine doses have already been administered in Belgium, Italy and Germany.
Many countries around the world have recently raised concerns about the AstraZeneca vaccine after a study revealed it to be ineffective against the South African coronavirus strain.
In addition, the company faces troubles with deliveries of the vaccine to the EU. Brussels even threatened to take legal action against the UK-Swedish drugmaker after it said it would deliver only 31 million of the 80 million doses contracted for the first quarter.
