The European Union has not renewed its contract to supply Covid-19 vaccines with AstraZeneca. It was European Commissioner Thierry Breton who announced it, the day after the signing of a new EU contract with Pfizer. “We have not renewed the contract with AstraZeneca after the month of June. We will see, we will see what happens”, he declared on France Inter and France Info.

Despite this rather discouraging signal, the European Commissioner left doubt on a possible renewal of the contract with the Oxford / AstraZeneca alliance: “It’s not done yet, wait”, he tempers, specifying that contract renewals, like that of Pfizer / BioNTech, have only just begun. “We will have others “, assures Thierry Breton.

Success of messenger RNA vaccines

Emmanuel Macron also maintained the uncertainty. AstraZeneca vaccine “will help us out of the crisis”, he insisted, “but to respond to variants, we see that other vaccines are now more effective”.

The EU is now openly relying on second-generation vaccines, known as messenger RNA, such as those from Pfizer / BioNTech and the American Moderna. An innovative technology, judged to be more effective against the South African and Brazilian variants. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Saturday announced a new contract to purchase up to 1.8 billion doses of Covid vaccine from Pfizer / BioNTech by 2023.

AstraZeneca shunned

The AstraZeneca vaccine has chained the misadventures. Between delays in deliveries, which have prompted the EU to take legal action against the laboratory, doubts about the effectiveness of the vaccine against variants, and suspensions linked to the risk of thrombosis, AstraZeneca is far from popular. .

In France, only 75% of the available doses of this vaccine have been injected. Anxious to increase the pace of vaccination, Prime Minister Jean Castex recalled the absence of “danger” linked to the Anglo-Swedish vaccine.

In total, the AstraZeneca has resulted in “30 cases, including 9 deaths” rare thromboses in France, over 3.8 million doses administered according to the French Medicines Agency (ANSM). A “Good vaccine”, added the Minister of Health Olivier Véran, while specifying that it would probably remain reserved for people over 55 years old.