AstraZeneca has reduced its number of vaccine doses expected into the country at the weekend from 45,000 to 9,000, the Irish Mirror has learned.
The delivery of 45,000 jabs were expected into Ireland on Saturday and will now be cut back significantly.
A HSE spokeswoman has also confirmed that the delivery scheduled for Friday, April 30 of 165,000 doses is also delayed with a new delivery expected on Monday, May 3.
However, this date has not been confirmed.
The news comes after the Oireachtas Health Committee heard that in the last 48 hours, AstraZeneca have changed it’s delivery schedule which would also impact volumes of vaccines delivered.
A spokeswoman for the HSE said: “Delivery scheduled for April 24th has been reduced from 45,000 doses to 9,000 doses.
“Delivery scheduled for Friday April 30th of 165,000 doses, is now delayed, with a new arrival date (to be confirmed) of Monday May 3rd (a delay of 3 days).”
Fine Gael TD Neale Richmond has said there should be no new Covid vaccine contracts with AstraZeneca.
He said the EU needs to “think long and hard about the company’s operation in the EU beyond the pandemic in light of this utterly awful performance.”
He added: “The consistent failure to meet supply deadlines has been a disaster for this company and jeopardises the health of EU citizens.
“EU citizens that have paid top dollar for the development of a vaccine that simply hasn’t been supplied.”
