Switzerland destroys over 600,000 expired doses of Moderna Covid vaccine – Endpoints News
As concerns about uptake and distribution persist, Switzerland is among the first countries to plan to destroy hundreds of thousands of unexpired and unused doses of Covid-19 vaccine.
The European country said it plans to destroy more than 600,000 doses of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine Spikevax as the doses reached their expiration date.
However, Stรฉphane Bancel, CEO of Moderna, told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland that he was about to throw 30 million cans in the bin and exclaimed, “We have a big demand problem.”
Stephane Bancel, CEO of Moderna:
“It’s sad to say I’m about to throw 30 million cans in the bin because no one wants them. We have a big demand problem.โ
Notes that China doesn’t want MRNA products and that there are 7 billion doses.https://t.co/xfKZbVT8RJ pic.twitter.com/WVboChDma7
โ Efron Monsanto ๐จ๐ฆ๐๐ (@realmonsanto) May 23, 2022
According to the Swiss news site Swiss Info, The cost of destroying the vaccines is one Swiss franc or $1.05 per kilogram. An estimated 7 million doses of Covid vaccine remain in the country, but the number of vaccinations has fallen sharply in recent months. SwissInfo found around 1200 doses were being administered per day in May, with the Swiss government having bought 34 million doses for 2022.
In FebruaryThe government said 15 million vaccine doses could be transferred to the COVAX program, which aims to ensure fair and equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines worldwide and distribute vaccines to developing countries. However, negotiations are said to be ongoing.
Switzerland is not the only European country preparing to destroy vaccines. Earlier this month, health officials in Denmark, corresponding Al Jazeera, said 1.1 million surplus Covid-19 vaccines had to be disposed of due to expiration dates and efforts to donate them to other countries had failed.
according to a report from the BBCAround 4.7 million Covid vaccine doses ended up being wasted, including doses that had to be destroyed by the end of October 2021 in England until the end of October 2021, with the AstraZeneca vaccine accounting for around 1.9 million of the discarded vaccines.
In the US, as previously reported, a report was revealed that Emergent had to destroy over 400 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine after failing to meet quality standards.