Moscow, Australia has received 717,000 UK-manufactured doses of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine but did not reveal the source of the shipments for fear of controversy, The Sydney Morning Herald reported on Thursday.The first batch of 300,000 UK-made doses arrived at Sydney Airport on February 28. Then, the Australian government said the coronavirus vaccine delivery, which came one month after the European Commission limited the export of vaccines, was from “overseas” but the exact source was not revealed.Australia received another UK-made AstraZeneca vaccine delivery in March, on an Emirates passenger plane, according to The Sydney Morning Herald.The newspaper said that the UK-made vaccine deliveries have helped maintain the Australian vaccination campaign but could present difficulties for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson as UK government officials have allegedly known about the Australian shipments but did not disclose the information for fear of domestic criticism.
On Wednesday, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison denied having accused the European Union of blocking vaccine shipments to the country. He did emphasize that Australia was still owed 3.1 million doses and urged the bloc to grant AstraZeneca the license to finish exporting the 3.8 million doses contracted in September.
In January, the European Commission agreed on a mechanism to put extra controls on the exports of coronavirus vaccines produced in the EU amid massive shortfalls and rollout delays in its member states. Under the new regulations, EU countries can make a decision on the exports, but the final say stays with the European Commission. About 90 states were excluded from this scheme, including EU neighboring countries and the Balkan states.
The AstraZeneca vaccine has been facing increased criticism amid reported cases of blood clots. Earlier this week, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said that, according to its findings, blood clots could be a side effect of the AstraZeneca vaccine but the “reported combination of blood clots and low blood platelets is very rare, and the overall benefits of the vaccine in preventing COVID-19 outweigh the risks of side effects.”Meanwhile, the UK government’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI) recommended on Wednesday that people under 30 be offered an alternative to AstraZeneca amid concerns that the vaccine may cause rare blood clots in younger people.AstraZeneca said on Wednesday that it was working to establish the causes of blood clots in people inoculated with its coronavirus vaccine, but emphasized that these were very rare cases.