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Due COVID-19 vaccine deliveries to Italy short of 300,000 doses: official

Global Times

By Xinhua Published: Jan 30, 2021 09:56 AM

The doses of authorized coronavirus vaccines available in Italy were 300,000 less than due, because of delivery delays, the country's emergency commissioner said on Friday.

"Unfortunately, almost every day now, our forecasts about the progress and duration of the vaccination campaign have to be adjusted...regardless of our efforts," commissioner Domenico Arcuri told a press conference, explaining that the notice of delay in deliveries came from US pharmaceutical company Moderna.

"Also Moderna has just informed us that, for the week starting Feb. 8, some 132,000 vaccine doses will be delivered instead of the planned 166,000, which means 20 percent fewer," said Arcuri.

"We are missing at least 300,000 doses, doses that we should have received."

For now, the two coronavirus vaccines authorized in the European Union (EU) and in Italy are those developed by American multinational Pfizer and German BioNTech, and by US company Moderna.

On Jan. 15, Pfizer said it would temporarily delay some vaccine shipments, because of changes being introduced to its manufacturing process to boost production.

In the two following weeks, Italy received respectively some 30 percent and 20 percent fewer doses of Pfizer vaccine than due, according to the commissioner's estimate.

The vaccines (from both manufacturers) have been administered to over 1.7 million people in Italy up to Friday, and some 392,000 people have been given both doses.

With this figure, Italy ranked second in the EU after Germany (which surpasses 2 million people) in terms of people vaccinated.

According to Arcuri, the country's 20 regions have so far administered some 73 percent of all available doses.

Concerns over the impact of delivery delays have grown in Italy, as well as several other EU countries, for the immediate impact on the schedule of the vaccination campaign.

The issue has become pressing especially after Jan. 21, when people who were vaccinated first -- in Italy, the campaign kicked off on Dec. 31 -- started to need the second mandatory shot of the vaccine.

The Pfizer vaccine has to be administered in two shots 21 days apart to be effective.

Up to Thursday, Italy registered over 2.5 million coronavirus cases, Health Ministry's data showed. This total included 474,617 active infections, some 87,381 deaths, and over 1.9 million recoveries.

Vaccination campaigns with authorized COVID-19 vaccines are now underway in some countries around the world. Meanwhile, further 236 candidate vaccines are being developed -- 63 of which are in clinical development -- in several countries including Germany and Italy in the EU, China, Britain, and the United States, the World Health Organization (WHO) stated on Jan. 26.