A legal representative of the European Union has filed a lawsuit against AstraZeneca over delayed supplies and has demanded the company for at least 120 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine by the end of next June.

The case in a Belgian court is the second brought by the European Commission against the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company.

The case details
The company’s attorney complained in court that the European Union’s executive authority had opened a second case to set specific doses for the company to deliver in its first official request so far.

The lawyer told the court that the European Union “hopes” to deliver the remaining 300 million contracted doses by next September.
AstraZeneca’s lawyer confirmed to the judge that the company “hopes” to deliver 100 million doses by the end of next June.
The company’s attorney declined to comment when asked whether the company could accept the European Union’s request to deliver 120 million doses on time.
It was agreed in the Brussels court, Tuesday, that the first hearing in the new case will be on September 24.

Causes of conflict
In March, European Commission President von der Leyen announced that AstraZeneca will not be able to export any of its COVID-19 vaccine doses manufactured on European soil outside the Union before the latter receives the full delayed quantities of this vaccine.
Tensions between the company and the conglomerate escalated after the difficulties that Pfizer / Biotech faced in delivering their doses, while the vaccination campaign in the European Union is slowly proceeding.
The European Union has granted AstraZeneca 336 million euros ($ 408.77 million) to develop its vaccine and increase its production capacity.
AstraZeneca has so far delivered only 31 million doses out of the 120 million that clustering has promised. It warns that it will also provide only 70 million of the additional 180 million doses that were supposed to be delivered during the remainder of the year.

AstraZeneca aims to deliver only 100 million doses in June, while the agreement was to deliver 300 million doses.

European Union leaders have been frustrated by a massive shortage of deliveries of AstraZeneca vaccine shipments, as infections soar in the third wave of the pandemic across Europe.
Fears are increasing that the Commission will ban the company’s exports of the vaccine until the European Union receives the shipments it promised, according to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Vaccination in European Union countries
AstraZeneca announced that the effectiveness of its vaccine against Covid-19 reached 76%, confirming, according to the new results, that the vaccine is developed with the University of Oxford is 100% effective in facing acute or critical forms of the disease. The effectiveness of the vaccine is up to 85% among adults over the age of 65 years.

In the first quarter of this year, the European Union received 107 million doses of all licensed vaccines on its territory, for a population of 446 million. At a time when the European Commission aims to “vaccinate 70% of European adults by the summer.”

The Egyptian Medicines Authority said, on Monday, that it had granted an emergency license to use the “Coronavac” vaccine, which is produced by the Chinese company “Sinovac” to prevent the Coronavirus.

Egypt has so far received shipments of “Sinopharma” and “AstraZeneca” vaccines and announced that it is preparing to produce up to 80 million doses of “Sinovac” vaccine locally. It was also granted approval to use the Russian “Sputnik” vaccine.

On Sunday, the Egyptian Ministry of Health announced that 567 people had recovered from infection with the Coronavirus, bringing the recovery cases to 167,24 cases, while the country recorded 953 new infections, bringing the number of infections since the virus appeared more than a year ago to 222,523 cases.

While the ministry counted 51 new deaths due to infection with the virus, bringing the total number of deaths in the country to 13,49 deaths.

Egypt is seeking to increase reliance on local production of anti-Corona vaccines, and the local pharmaceutical company, Minapharm, announced last Thursday that it had entered into an agreement with the Russian Investment Fund to produce about 40 million doses of the Russian vaccine, “Sputnik-V,” annually.

A joint statement between the Egyptian company and the Russian Fund stated, “The two parties intend to start transferring technology immediately.”

The statement, which was published by the Egyptian company on its website, stated that “the vaccine is expected to be launched in the third quarter of 2021”, to provide more than 40 million doses annually. Production will take place at the company’s facility in Cairo, and then will be distributed internationally.

On Sunday, the Iraqi Ministry of Interior announced that 82 people were killed and 110 others were injured, due to the outbreak of a fire caused by the explosion of an oxygen tank, in a hospital designated for Korna patients, southeast of Baghdad, at a time when the Prime Minister issued decisions to punish officials.

Announcing the high death toll, Interior Ministry spokesman Khaled Al-Muhanna said, “There is an urgent need to review safety measures in all hospitals to prevent such a painful incident in the future.”

The fire broke out, on Saturday, in Ibn Al-Khatib Hospital in the Diyala Bridge region. Relatives of patients rushed to the hospital during the fire to save their loved ones.

A man visiting his brother spoke of people jumping out of the windows to escape.

Ahmed Zaki added, “I carried my brother to the street near the checkpoint. Then I went up to the last floor, which was not burned. I found a girl who was suffocating, she was about 19 years old, who was suffocating and about to die.”

“I put it on my shoulder and ran. People were jumping … and doctors fell on the carriages. Everyone was jumping. I kept going up and fetching people and coming down again,” Reuters quoted Zaki as saying.

Medical sources said that the patients were transferred to other hospitals. However, many of the victims’ family members stayed in front of the hospital hours after the fire was extinguished because they had not found their relatives in other hospitals.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kazemi ordered an investigation into the accident before announcing the Minister of Health’s suspension from work and referring him to an investigation.

Al-Kazemi also ordered the arrest of the governor of Baghdad and the director-general of the Rusafa Health Department, and that they also are referred for investigation.

Al-Kazemi said in a statement, “Such an incident is evidence of default. Therefore, I have directed an immediate investigation and reservation to the director of the hospital, the director of security and maintenance, and all concerned until the negligence is found and held accountable.”

The Coronavirus crisis has burdened the Iraqi health system, which has been devastated by sanctions, war, and neglect for decades. And the Iraqi Ministry of Health said earlier Saturday that the total number of people infected with the virus has reached one million and 25,288, including 15,217 deaths.

For his part, Iraqi President Barham Salih said that the tragedy of Ibn Al-Khatib Hospital is a wound to the whole nation, and as a result of the accumulation of destruction of state institutions as a result of corruption and mismanagement.

He added in a tweet on Twitter: “Showing pain and sympathy with our martyr and injured sons is not enough without strenuous accountability for those who are negligent, and without conducting a comprehensive and serious review of the performance of institutions to ensure that such disasters do not recur.”

131 countries have become on the list that the United States advises its citizens not to “travel to”, after the US State Department added 100 countries, including Britain, Canada, France, Mexico, and Germany, as they fall within the “fourth level” in terms of the spread of the Covid-19 virus, which is a high level. Extremely.

On Monday, the State Department said that it “will increase the number of countries that fall under the highest degree of warning it has, to include about 80% of the countries of the world,” relying more on current assessments from US health officials.
As of April 20, that list contained 34 countries out of about 200. But it now includes 131 countries.

The White House announced, on Wednesday, that the United States will achieve this week the goal set by Joe Biden to give 200 million doses of vaccines against the Covid-19 virus in the first 100 days of his presidency.

The United States is the country’s worst affected, after the death toll from Covid-19 exceeded 568 thousand, with 31.8 million infections.

The virus has killed more than three million people around the world since the WHO office in China reported the outbreak of the disease at the end of December 2019, and the number of infections exceeded 143 million.

A large vaccination center opens its doors on Saturday in the Disneyland theme park near Paris, 30 km east of the French capital, which has been temporarily closed due to the pandemic since October 30.

The total number of injuries in France has reached more than 5.4 million, including more than 100,000 deaths.

A study issued by the “Deep Knowledge Analytics” organization revealed that the cities are the safest from the threat of the pandemic and the best response to the “Covid 19” epidemic, during the first quarter of this year.

The study relied on big data that included several criteria such as vaccine distribution, treatment provision, transparency and governance.

The classification included 25 cities from different regions of the world, so the city of Abu Dhabi in the UAE was the best in the world.

The South Korean capital ranked second, Australian Sydney ranked third, and Singapore ranked fourth.

And the Canadian city of Ottawa ranked fifth, then the German capital Berlin in sixth place, in terms of responding to the Corona epidemic.