British government cancels £1.2 billion contract with French vaccine-maker

British government cancels £1.2 billion contract with French vaccine-maker Valneva.

The French company has disclosed that the British government have broken off an agreement for the supply of nearly 200 million doses of coronavirus vaccines. The government has claimed that Valneva have breached their obligations, but this is something which the company have denied.

The French company have been manufacturing the vaccine candidate at their West Lothian plant in the UK. The company had been planning on creating around 200 new jobs in the future, as part of an expansion plan.

The government have alleged that Valneva have breached an agreement but the company are “strenuously” denying this. Valneva said: ‘Valneva SE, a specialty vaccine company, today announced that it has received a termination notice from the UK Government (HMG) in relation to the Supply Agreement for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, VLA2001.

‘The contract provides HMG with the right to terminate. HMG has alleged that the company is in breach of its obligations under the supply agreement, but the company strenuously denies this.’

At the moment is not clear what the exact nature of the alleged breach is.

In other coronavirus news, the fifth wave continues to decline in Spain, as the vaccination programme continues at a good pace.

The fifth wave of the coronavirus pandemic has declined for another day as shown in Sunday’s data from many autonomous communities. The vaccination programme in Spain is progressing well across nearly the entire country.

Andalucia is making great progress with the vaccination programme and so far a grand total of 12,471,242 doses of the coronavirus vaccines have been given. This means that over 90 per cent of the vaccines which have been received, have been used already. In Andalusia alone over 6 million people are now fully vaccinated.

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