The European Union is demanding answers over the million's of UN delivered doses of the coronavirus vaccine that it ordered.

The chief executive of drugmaker AstraZeneca said the EU's late decision to sign a contract to supply the vaccine meant that there were still glitches to be smoothed out in its production process.

But all 27 EU countries air facing heat for a slow rollout, and politicians are asking whether vaccines produced within the you are going to hire bidders outside the bloc.

Talks and more talks have done little toe less than the use anger at AstraZeneca.

European officials say the firm has failed to adequately explain why it was slashing its vaccine deliveries to the U.

S.

Europe invested billions to help develop the world's first covered 19 vaccines to create a truly global common good and now the companies must deliver, they must honor their obligations.

AstraZeneca's delivery cuts are the latest setback to you plans to vaccinate 70% of adults by summer.

Earlier this month, Pfizer said it would temporarily reduce its deliveries to the U as well, citing production issues.

But UK health officials say they expect to have enough supply to meet the country's vaccination targets.

That reality is fueling tensions.

I think the thing to do now is not to, you know, go down.

The sort of the dead end off vaccine nationalism is to work together to make sure that we protect our people.

That's my priority is to protect the British people, uh, to protect the United Kingdom, but also to protect the whole world because no one is safe until we're all safe.

But divisions over how to fairly distribute vaccines will likely persist in the near term.

South Africa's president lashed out at wealthy countries, accusing them of buying up the global vaccine supply.

Now rich countries in the world are holding on to these vaccines, and we are saying, Release the excess vaccines that you have you have ordered and and hold it.

South Africa still needs to secure 14 million more doses to accomplish its vaccination goals.

By contrast, the you UK and the US have signed contracts with drugmakers to acquire more than 200 times that amount.

Alright, Europe's supply shock to talk about that.

I'm joined tonight by Rachel Silverman.

She's a policy fellow with the Center for Global Development.

She specializes in global health policy.

Rachel is good to see you again.

I remember last November you calculated that the world's wealthy countries had snapped up almost all of the by on tech Pfizer vaccine.

That was the first vaccine that was approved.

What's the picture like now in terms of vaccine access for the world's poorest countries?

So So it's a much better picture, I should say.

Also, it's great to be back.

It's a much better picture, but it is a complicated picture still, So the first big thing that's happened is we have additional vaccine candidates that have shown themselves we highly effective in late stage clinical trials.

So we also have the Madonna vaccine and, of course, the AstraZeneca vaccine, and that's expanded the overall supply of vaccine in the system.

There are also the vaccines coming out of China and Russia that, although in my opinion, do not have sufficiently transparent shared data, are being taken up by some low and middle income countries even already today.

Um, and what we're seeing is there still are not having vaccines reach these countries in the quantities we would like to see on the speed that we're seeing in rich countries.

But we are starting to see Kovacs, which is an international, uh, conglomerate, that Glauber it NGO charity effort to ensure equitable access.

Thio these vaccines.

We see that they are talking about scheduling some of these deliveries for this first round of vaccines in Q one.

So things are improving, but they're not where we want them to be quite yet.

Yeah, and we've got the European Union saying that it's not receiving what it paid for and what it ordered.

At the same time, you've got South Africa's president today accusing wealthy countries of hoarding the vaccine for for their own citizens.

I mean, what do you think?

What's the truth here?

The're truth is it's complicated.

Three truth.

I mean, fundamentally.

The truth is, there's just not enough vaccine supply to go around to everyone right now.

And so what we're seeing is no country actually has access.

Right now, everyone is struggling to get enough supply to vaccinate their citizens and is trying to keep up with demand.

However, what is true, and I think what President Ramaphosa is referring Teoh is the fact that rich countries have preordered much more than they will need in aggregate.

So by the end of this year, assuming supply productions happened as expected, many wealthy countries will have much more than they need, while poorer countries probably still will be struggling to meet the needs of their populations.

So what I'd love to see is some commitments to vaccinate to donate the excess vaccinations once countries have know that they have enough to vaccinate their own populations.

And what Norway is doing, actually is donating some doses in parallel to their own vaccination efforts.

Well, what about these cheaper vaccines that are coming online?

Now?

I'm thinking of AstraZeneca.

I'm also thinking about the one from Johnson and Johnson.

Shouldn't they help solve the problem for poorer countries?

Absolutely.

So every new vaccine that comes online, especially these ones with lower price points, is our enormously helpful in solving these overall issues.

AstraZeneca.

We have pretty large international production capacity, including through the Serum Institute in India, which is producing this vaccine, and Mass.

J and J.

We still don't have efficacy Rita for that vaccine, but if it comes online, that will be great news, in large part because it only requires one dose which is tremendously helpful from a logistical perspective.

So the more vaccines we get online, the closer we get to solving this problem and relieving the overall supply constraints that we're all feeling in Europe in the U.

S.

And in poorer countries.

Rachel Zimmerman with the Center for Global Development.

Rachel, We appreciate your time and your insights tonight.

Thank you, thank you.

Let's get a look now, with some other developments in the pandemic, the number of covert cases worldwide has now surpassed 100 million.

That's according to Johns Hopkins University.

The Kovacs vaccine sharing platform says it hopes to supply 1.8 billion doses to poorer countries this year.

Peru's President, Francisco Sagasti, has ordered the total lock down of the capital, Lima and nine other regions following a surge in new cases there.