WHO Europe: Vaccine production delays are a real issue

GENEVA (AP) — National tensions are erupting over slow coronavirus vaccine rollouts but production delay issues are real and world leaders must realize that “no one is safe until everyone is safe,” the European chief for the World Health Organization said Thursday.

Dr. Hans Kluge said international solidarity in the fight against the virus that has already killed 2.1 million people was “key,” while noting tensions between that wider goal and the responsibility each leader felt to protect their own people.

He said “the telephone line is very hot” in conversations with European Union officials and others clamoring for more vaccines, fearing new virus variants that are more contagious that have already swept through Britain and are gaining elsewhere.

The cautionary note comes as the EU has accused pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca of failing to deliver the coronavirus vaccine doses that it promised to the 27-nation bloc despite getting EU funding to ramp up vaccine production. The company says the production issues at EU plants are slowing the amount of vaccines available, and it can't give what it does not have. Fellow vaccine maker Pfizer has had supply issues too, due to a production upgrade at a plant in Belgium.

Kluge said he had spoken with EU President Charles Michel and EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides, citing a “general goodwill” and an “understanding that no one is safe until everyone is safe. But the reality is that for the time being, there is realistically a shortfall of vaccines.”

“The telephone line is very hot as you can imagine,” Kluge told reporters at a video news conference from WHO Europe headquarters in Copenhagen, alluding to the European leaders. "We stand by them and we do understand the situation.”

Dr. Siddhartha Datta, WHO Europe’s program manager for...