With the European Union’s deal to purchase 300m doses due by 29 January still pending, AstraZeneca has decided to cut deliveries of the Oxford COVID-19 vaccine to the European Union by 60%.

AstraZeneca was expected to deliver around 80 million doses to the 27 EU countries by the end of March, an EU official told the agency, however, vaccines to be delivered would now be cut to 31 million doses due to “production problems” at a vaccine factory in Belgium run by its partner Novasep.

Recall that federal officials in Canada also revealed the same delay in vaccine delivery from Pfizer-BioNTech as a result of production issues in Belgium.

European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Stella Kyriakides via Twitter expressed deep dissatisfaction with the new development.

“We insisted on a precise delivery schedule on the basis of which Member States should be planning their vaccination programs, subject to the granting of a conditional marketing authorization.

“The @EU_Commission will continue to insist with @AstraZeneca on measures to increase predictability and stability of deliveries, and acceleration of the distribution of doses,” she tweeted.