(Reuters) – The COVAX vaccine-sharing facility will likely receive 1.425 billion doses of anti-COVID-19 shots from donor countries this year, down from a July estimate of 2 billion, the GAVI Vaccine Alliance said on Wednesday.
Reasons for the cut include export restrictions on key supplier Serum Institute of India (SII), Gavi said in a joint statement with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), the World Health Organization and Unicef.
Manufacturing problems at Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca as well as delays in the regulatory review of shots developed by U.S. biotech firm Novavax and China’s Clover Biopharmaceuticals were further limiting factors, the organisations said.
(Reporting by Ludwig Burger and Alistair Smout; editing by Jason Neely)
