EU, AstraZeneca Reach Settlement Deal

The European Commission, and the giant pharmaceutical corporation AstraZeneca finally reached a settlement deal over the delayed delivery of 200 million COVID-19 vaccine doses, Reuters reported on Friday.

The clashes between the EU, and the international drugmaker started early this year as the EU complained that there is a huge shortage in delivered AstraZeneca vaccine.

Several EU countries suffered from a shortage in vaccines after speeding up the vaccination rollout to protect the biggest number of the bloc's residents against the virus.

Therefore, the bloc started to depend on other COVID-19 vaccine brands such as Pfizer.

According to the settlement, AstraZeneca committed to delivering 60 million vaccine doses by the end of this year's third quarter, and 75 at the end of this year's final quarter.

The company will send 65 million vaccine doses to the bloc by the end of next year's first quarter.

In the same context, EU Commission said that some of the committed vaccine doses by the leading company would be distributed outside the EU bloc to help the global vaccination rollout.

EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said: "We will continue helping the rest of the world. Our aim is to share at least 200 million doses of vaccines through COVAX with low and middle-income countries until the end of this year."