Covid-19: Vaccine minister 'confident' of supplies

PA Media

Supplies of vaccines are "tight" but the UK is confident it will receive enough doses to meet its targets, the vaccine minister has said.

Nadhim Zahawi told BBC Breakfast that Pfizer was "confident" it would deliver for the UK amid EU warnings of tighter restrictions on exports.

Export limits could affect UK supplies of the Belgium-made Pfizer vaccine.

Countries should avoid "vaccine nationalism" and ensure a fair global supply, Mr Zahawi said.

Mr Zahawi said the UK had supplies of the Oxford vaccine manufactured domestically by AstraZeneca as well as those from Pfizer.

"I'm confident we will meet our mid-February target and continue beyond that," he told the BBC, referring to the goal of giving a first dose to the 15 million people in the top four priority groups by then.

"Supplies are tight, they continue to be, these are new manufacturing processes," Mr Zahawi added. "It's lumpy and bumpy, it gets better and stabilises and improves going forward."

But he declined to say that he had received guarantees of the number of doses the UK would receive from Pfizer and other manufacturers and refused to confirm how many doses had already arrived.

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January 26, 2021 at 08:30PM

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55808266