About 3.9 million corona vaccine doses have expired
Berlin (dpa) – In Germany, around 3.9 million corona vaccine doses expired between the beginning of December 2021 and the end of June. This was announced by the Ministry of Health in Berlin in response to a parliamentary question from the Union member of the Bundestag Stephan Pilsinger (CSU), about which the editorial network Germany (RND) first reported and which is also available to the German Press Agency.
These are vaccine doses from the manufacturer Moderna, which “expired at different stages of the logistical supply chain”, as the answer says. However, the federal government would only have the data on the expiry if doctors and pharmacies had reported it to pharmaceutical wholesalers.
In total, the federal government had ordered around 134.3 million vaccine doses in the period mentioned. No dose was donated. The international vaccine alliance Gavi had stated that it was no longer accepting donations because there was no need.
The CSU politician Pilsinger told the RND, especially in times of tight budgets and inflation, the state should not throw the citizens’ tax money out the window pointlessly. Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) is sitting on a “growing mountain of vaccine that is in danger of expiring”.