World

EU's von der Leyen admits vaccine rollout failures

February 11, 2021 7:16 am

The EU was late to authorise Covid-19 vaccines and “still not where we want to be”, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said.

She also acknowledged the EU had been overconfident about production targets being met amid delays at factories.

The Commission chief has come under fire for the EU’s slow vaccine rollout.

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There is anger that the bloc has fallen behind countries like the UK, where more than 12 million people have already received the jab.

But Mrs von der Leyen was adamant that ordering vaccines collectively on behalf of member states was “the right thing to do”.

Meanwhile pharmaceutical group AstraZeneca has said it will join forces with German company IDT Biologika to produce more vaccines for Europe.

Producers of vaccines including the Oxford-AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNTech jabs have postponed delivery of some of the EU’s order because of capacity and supply issues.