The cut in deliveries of Pfizer vaccines is a detective story in which the characters tell different versions of the same story. According to a report by the extraordinary emergency commissioner, Domenico Arcuri, Italy has booked 8,6 million doses to be received by March 31, but - given the accumulated delays and the expected delivery rate - by mid-February it will have less than half of the promised doses (3,9 million) and it is unlikely that the pharmaceutical company will be able to recover in the following weeks. For this reason our government - unique in Europe - is evaluating with the state attorney the possibility of suing Pfizer for breach of contract.
A POSSIBLE CAUSE RISKS FAILURE
However, compliance with weekly deliveries is not a legally binding obligation for the American giant, which - based on the agreements entered into with the EU - must only meet the quarterly deadline. It means that the company can only be considered in default if it does not deliver all the promised doses by the end of March. In Italy we are convinced that it won't make it, but Pfizer assures that Rome's fears are unfounded: "Deliveries will return to normal from the week of January 25 and will increase from February 15 - the company guarantees - We will deliver the quantities of vaccine doses scheduled for the first quarter and a much higher quantity in the second”.
PROBLEMS CAUSED BY DELAYS
The problem is that the delays of these weeks still create a series of problems. Lazio, for example – where the cut in deliveries was 30% – has asked Local Health Authorities and hospitals to suspend “the administration of the first doses to any category of population” from today, so as to be able to respect the recall calendar. However, this means that the start of vaccinations for the over-80s will at least be postponed to February 11st. The situation in Lombardy is even worse, where the slowdown will make it necessary to postpone the start of administration to the elderly even to XNUMX March.
THE ROAD OF "HEALTH DAMAGE"
This opens up another legal possibility. If the accusation of breach of contracts were not sustainable, Italy could still sue Pfizer for causing health damage. For example, our country could demonstrate that some people fell ill with Covid due to delivery delays, which did not allow boosters to be administered on schedule.
PFIZER'S JUSTIFICATIONS
Of course, it is a complex road to say the least, also because Pfizer justifies the cuts in recent weeks in an apparently unassailable way. The first, that of January 8, came after the European Medicines Agency (EMA) allowed the doses that can be extracted from each vial to be increased from five to six. And since the contracts talk about doses - not vials - the pharmaceutical company felt authorized to reschedule deliveries on the basis of the new dosage allowed for each vial.
As for the delays in recent days, Pfizer claims that they are due to the works in the Puurs plant in Belgium, which apparently will last very little but will allow this year's production to be increased from 1,3 to 2 billion doses .
THE EUROPEAN SUSPECTS
In EU diplomatic circles, however, there is a suspicion that part of European bookings have been diverted to customers willing to pay higher sums, such as the Gulf countries.
