EU rejects criticism for slow vaccine rollout across bloc

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Commission defended its coronavirus vaccination strategy Monday amid growing criticism in member states about the slow rollout of COVID-19 shots across the region with 450 million inhabitants.

Vaccinations programs in the 27 nation-bloc have gotten off to a slow start and some EU members have been quick to blame the EU's executive arm for a perceived failure of delivering the right amount of doses. In Finland, health authorities are reportedly unhappy that the country only received about 40,000 doses in December, instead of the 300,000 that were expected,

Facing a barrage of questions on vaccines during a press conference, EU Commission spokesman Eric Mamer said the main problem with the deployment of vaccination programs “is an issue of production capacity, an issue that everybody is facing."

“We have actually signed contracts that would allow member states to get access to 2 billion doses, largely enough to vaccinate the whole of the EU population," he said. The bloc has nearly 450 million people.

As part of its strategy, the EU has sealed six vaccines contracts with Moderna, AstraZeneca, Sanofi-GSK, Janssen Pharmaceutica NV, Pfizer-BioNTech and CureVac. But only the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has been approved for use so far in the 27-nation bloc. The EU’s health regulator is expected to decide on Wednesday whether to recommend authorizing the Moderna vaccine.

Mamer also clarified the role of the commission in securing contracts with potential drug makers. He said the commission did not directly buy doses of vaccines but “acted as an investor" to provide funding to pharmaceutical companies developing vaccines. The goal was to speed up production capacities and research, with all EU nations free to decide how many doses they...