Europe has so many vaccines that it cannot use them all

At least 20 thousand doses in Poland and 70 thousand in Lithuania have expired, but there is no precise calculation because the European agencies are not taking into account

(photo: Unsplash) While in low-income countries just 1% of the population has received at least one dose of vaccine and the world average is only 28%, in Europe several countries are letting thousands of vaccines against Covid-19 expire and throw away. Lithuania, for example, has thrown away at least 20,000 expired doses and Poland about 70,000. However, it is not possible to know the total number of waste, because neither the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention, nor the Commission are keeping track of the doses thrown away.

Not only Poland and Lithuania, but also the Republic Czech, Germany and France are among the countries with the highest numbers of waste. In the Czech Republic, more than 3000 doses were thrown away because they were out of date, damaged or not properly stored. In Germany, more than 7,000 doses of AstraZeneca, already approved, have been returned to the manufacturer, while the number of German citizens who refuse vaccination is increasing. Finally in France, according to the Ministry of Health, at least 50,000 doses of AstraZeneca have reached their expiration date.

According to the authorities of the countries involved, this waste is mainly caused by the refusal of many people to receive the vaccination and from the many appointments to be vaccinated to which no one showed up. Before being administered, in fact, the doses must be extracted from their storage vials and diluted, following this procedure many vaccines become subject to severe time limits, such as Pfizer which must absolutely be administered within 6 hours after dilution.

However, some countries are acting in a decidedly different way, keeping expired vaccines pending the announcement of a possible extension of the validity period by manufacturers or the European Medicines Agency. For example, Romania is storing about 42 thousand doses of AstraZeneca, which have expired since last June 31.

The numbers of this waste are absolutely unjustifiable and for the World Health Organization the various countries must take all necessary measures to donate excess or discarded doses by the population. The European Union had activated in time an initiative to coordinate and facilitate donations, the so-called Covax, which aims to ensure equal access to vaccines for Covid-19 throughout the world. Unfortunately, so far only France has merged the doses of AstraZeneca rejected by the population in this initiative and the German government has announced that it will follow the same strategy only in the past few days.


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Topics

Europe Government Vaccines vaccine AstraZeneca-Oxford Coronavirus vaccine Pfizer vaccine BioNTech globalData. fldTopic = "Europe, Government, Vaccines, AstraZeneca-Oxford Vaccine, Coronavirus Vaccine, Pfizer BioNTech Vaccine"

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