EU Blocks Vaccine Shipment to Australia

Dozens of fellow medical staff will receive the jab this week.

Prime Minister Mario Draghi's spokesperson Paola Ansuini confirmed the move to CNN, adding that Italy and the European Commission had agreed on the action.

The EU launched an export control system in late January amid shortages of vaccine doses in the early stages of its inoculation campaign.

"The exports concerned the following export destinations: Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Hong Kong, Japan, Kuwait, Macau, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Oman, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United States and Uruguay", the official said.

The EU made preparations for the rollout of vaccinations, heavily funding research and production capacity over the past year but took longer to sign off potential vaccines and subsequently sign deals with manufacturers.

Under the commission's "transparency and authorisation mechanism" European Union member states vet planned exports out of the bloc of authorised COVID-19 vaccines.

The bloc has now signed deals for six different vaccines and has 450 million people to get jabbed.

The bloc says that, despite the current difficulties, it is still convinced it can vaccinate 70% of the adult population by the end of summer.

The move came just days after Prime Minister Mario Draghi, who took office last month, told fellow European Union leaders that the bloc needed to speed up vaccinations and crack down on pharma companies that failed to deliver on promised supplies.

It was hoped the move would force companies to respect their contractual obligations to the bloc before commercial exports could be approved.

The company later said it was striving to supply missing doses for the second quarter from outside Europe.

Centre-right MEP Peter Liese, who is the EPP's coordinator in the European Parliament's public health committee (ENVI), anticipated the news in a press conference on Thursday (4 March).