European commission backs Italian government, which says the 250,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine must stay in EU.
AstraZeneca has production sites in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy. Australia has purchased 53m doses from the company, the first of which are due to be distributed this month. The vaccine has the advantage of being able to be kept in normal refrigerated conditions, rather than in freezers.
AstraZeneca had made deliveries to Italy last week that were about 10-15% smaller than expected. But the company said it would respect its commitment to supply the country with 4.2m doses in the first quarter of the year.