Status: 04/11/2022 3:11 p.m
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Excess corona vaccine doses threaten to expire in Germany instead of going to poorer countries. According to the Federal Ministry of Health, the international initiative Covax is no longer accepting donations.
By the end of June, there is a risk that around three million doses of corona vaccine will be destroyed in Germany. The number was given by a spokesman for the Ministry of Health in Berlin. There is currently more vaccine available than is used and can be donated. The international vaccine initiative Covax, for example, is currently no longer accepting donations. “Therefore there is a risk that the vaccine will be discarded,” said the spokesman.
The vaccines are difficult to transport and handle. The international anti-pandemic initiative ACT-Accelerator is trying to help countries to set up the appropriate logistics. However, the demand must also be there, said the ministry spokesman. It was “then significantly lower than it would be good”. According to the Federal Foreign Office last week, Germany has so far donated around 104 million corona vaccine doses, mainly through the Covax initiative.
No costs mentioned
The spokesman for the Ministry of Health called it good news that BioNTech’s vaccine can now be stored longer. Therefore, by the end of June, it is not assumed that ten, but three million cans will have to be destroyed.
The spokesman did not comment on the cost of destroyed cans. That would allow conclusions to be drawn about prices that are not announced. Initially, the ministry responded to a request from the Union faction in the Bundestag that more than ten million cans could reach their expiry date by the end of June. The “Welt” had reported at the weekend about the possible destruction of vaccines “in not a few cases”.
677 million doses ordered
According to the Ministry of Health, Germany had 77 million doses of corona vaccine in stock as of April 4th. For the period between 2021 and 2023 there were and are orders for a total of 677 million cans.
According to the Federal Ministry of Health’s vaccination dashboard, only a few tens of thousands of doses per day were administered recently. Last December, there were sometimes more than a million vaccinations a day.
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