Tens of millions of Europe’s donated vaccines haven’t arrived. Who’s to blame? –

With just two weeks to go, the European Union’s goal of donating 250 million doses of coronavirus vaccines to low- and middle-income countries by the end of the year may be slipping out of reach: Only around 66 percent of committed doses have reached their destination.

As the new and contagious Omicron variant spreads across the world, wealthy nations are administering boosters and vaccinating children. Low-income countries, meanwhile, have received only 0.6 percent of all vaccines. And although the pace of donations is picking up, the World Health Organization worries that the latest surge in rich-country demand could slow things down again.

“WHO is concerned that such [booster] programs will repeat the vaccine hoarding we saw this year, and exacerbate inequity,” WHO Chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said this week.

As of December 14, about 166 million doses had been delivered from EU donations — 118 million through COVAX, a global partnership that facilitates the purchase and delivery of COVID-19 vaccines, and another 48.2 million through bilateral agreements between donor and recipient countries. Of the total doses from the EU donated through COVAX so far, only about 40 percent have been delivered.

The big question is: Where exactly is the holdup? A POLITICO investigation reveals the many challenges separating promises from reality at each step. First, initial pledges have often been accompanied with little detail on the brand of vaccine being shared or any attached conditions. Further delaying the timeline, EU countries have engaged in lengthy negotiations with vaccine manufacturers over issues such as liability.

Doses could only be allocated to recipient countries once these were resolved. That’s where many of these doses are now — allocated but not about to go into someone’s arm. It is here that a new series of headaches has emerged, with recipient countries rejecting doses with a short shelf life, bureaucracy that makes it difficult to accept deliveries, and a lack of capacity to absorb the doses in overstretched health systems.

“It is important to underline the difference between donations and deliveries,” said Renew MEP Chrysoula Zacharopoulou, who is also co-chair of the COVAX Council. “These steps — availability, allocation, acceptance, approvals and arrival — require the engagement of multiple partners.”

A POLITICO analysis of EU country-level data collected by UNICEF — one of the partners in COVAX, which includes the WHO, Gavi and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations — reveals that the EU had donated nearly 318 million doses to COVAX as of December 14. The figure drops significantly at each point in the delivery chain: 218 million doses ordered from vaccine manufacturers, 159 million released for shipment and 127 million in transit or arrived at their destination.

Blame game

It’s a complex situation no one wanted — and no one wants to be blamed for.

The EU claims Team Europe has not only met but exceeded its promise of 250 million vaccines donated by the end of the year, with Health Commissioner…