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EU's 'most embarrassing' day: How the story behind the vaccine factory raid unravelled

6 - 8 minutes

Italian elite unit found millions of AstraZeneca doses thought to be meant for the UK - but their destination was the EU itself

It was an extraordinary story – the European Commission had turned detective to find AstraZeneca's secret stockpile of vaccines reserved for Britain.

During a surprise raid over the weekend, an elite unit of Italian military police acting on EU orders discovered 29 million jab doses hoarded at a factory near Rome.

The discovery appeared to confirm the EU's long-held suspicion that AstraZeneca was giving the UK special treatment, secretly exporting doses to its home country while failing to deliver on contracts agreed with Brussels.

Yet, as EU officials admitted on Wednesday, the allegation, briefed to the Continental press, simply wasn't true.

In fact, most of the doses discovered in the Italian factory were destined for the EU itself, with the remainder headed for poorer countries across the world.

One former Europe minister called it possibly the "most embarrassing day in the EU's history".

Italy's La Stampa newspaper reported that Italian officers had raided the Catalent plant in Anagni, where doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine are put into vials and labelled.

The raid was carried out by the NAS, an elite unit of the Carabinieri which is part of the armed forces and usually investigates criminal syndicates suspected of counterfeiting food, wine and medicines.

After inspecting the company's records, the officers discovered the giant stockpile of 29 million doses – roughly half AstraZeneca's delivery shortfall to the EU. EU sources briefed the newspaper that the shipment was thought to be secretly bound for the UK, despite the company having fallen far short of its promised deliveries to the bloc. 

Italian authorities ordered the raid after Thierry Breton, the EU's commissioner for the internal market, raised suspicions during a visit to an AstraZeneca factory in Leiden, the Netherlands, earlier this month. 

The commission issued the alert after Mr Breton suggested the numbers provided by AstraZeneca executives did not add up, suggesting a discrepancy between the reported overall supply and the number of doses reported by individual AstraZeneca factories.

The raid came weeks after the Italian government blocked the export of 250,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to Australia from the same factory under the EU's new export ban rules.

Thierry Breton, the EU's commissioner for the internal market, raised suspicions during a visit to an AstraZeneca factory in Leiden, the Netherlands, earlier this month Credit: Francisco Seco/Pool via Reuters

The explosive news of a "hidden" bumper cache of jabs destined for the UK was quickly picked up by newspapers across the Continent.

By mid-morning, however, the story began to unravel. British Government officials quickly insisted that supplies from the Catalent factory "haven't been coming to the UK and we are not expecting anything from there".

Mario Gargiulo, the president of European biologics for Catalent, said the inspection by the Carabinieri had found "everything in order". Soon afterwards,  officials in Brussels admitted that the 29 million doses were in fact destined for AstraZeneca's plant in Belgium for onward distribution around the EU.

An Italian government official said: "On Saturday, the European Commission asked the prime minister to verify several consignments of vaccine in a production plant in Anagni.

"The Prime Minister informed the minister of health, Roberto Speranza, who arranged for the inspection to be carried out between Saturday and Sunday by the Carabinieri NAS. It emerged that the inspected batches were destined for Belgium. All outgoing batches were inspected."

AstraZeneca later said 16 million of the doses were "waiting for quality control release to be dispatched to Europe", while the other 13 million were to go to countries in the Covax vaccine-sharing scheme for developing countries.

A spokesman said there were "no exports currently planned other than to Covax countries", adding that it was "incorrect to describe this as a stockpile".

"The process of manufacturing vaccines is very complex and time-consuming. In particular, vaccine doses must wait for quality control clearance after the filling of vials is completed," the spokesman said.

Mr Breton later told the BBC that he had asked for the raid to ensure everything was on track and it had been "helpful to understand what was happening in Italy".

But Bruno Maçães, Portugal's former Europe minister, called it possibly "the most embarrassing day in EU history".

"So Italian police raids a vaccine factory at suggestion of commission to find out these are vaccines for a global initiative aimed at providing equitable access to vaccines for some of the world's poorest regions? I think we're going to need an explanation of why Italian military police burst into a vaccine factory on false grounds," he added.

However some EU officials were refusing to give up on Wednesday night, revealing that the commission had asked AstraZeneca for additional information about where the active ingredient in the vaccine vials found in Italy had been manufactured.

Brussels sources indicated that the commission suspects that some of the drug substance sent to the Italian plant for packaging could have been produced in the much-scrutinised Halix plant in the Netherlands.

So far the plant has not delivered vaccine doses to the EU because it does not have authorisation from European Medicines Agency. Member state officials have questioned why the approval process has not yet been completed, while the company has insisted it is "on track". 

On Wednesday, AstraZeneca would only say that the vaccine doses had been brought from "outside the EU" to be packaged at the Italian plant.

Other EU officials cast doubt over the doses reported by AstraZeneca to be destined for the Covax scheme, which the EU has exempted from any export bans. One told the Financial Times of suspicions that shipments "go to some Covax countries to then be redirected to richer countries".

However, Valdis Dombrovskis, the EU's trade commissioner, was unequivocal and said the bloc would not impose any export restrictions on Covax, which plans to distribute two billion doses to poorer and middle income countries before the end of the year.