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Glass ampoules with vaccine: Ordered way too much
Photo: Stephanie Pilick / dpa
In the corona pandemic, Germany ordered vaccines worth 13.1 billion euros.
The Federal Ministry of Health confirmed the number, initially the broadcasters NDR and WDR and the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" reported.
A total of 672 million vaccine doses have been ordered since the beginning of the pandemic.
That would be around eight doses for every inhabitant in Germany, from infants to the elderly.
According to the reports, most of the total number of vaccine orders that has now become known goes back to the tenure of Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU).
According to documents that have been kept secret so far, the federal government ordered 556 million corona vaccine doses with a total value of 10.05 billion euros during Spahn’s tenure.
So far, the costs for the vaccine orders had been unknown: the contracts that the EU Commission had concluded with the manufacturers for all member states are subject to strict confidentiality.
According to the research network, the Federal Government has a detailed order overview for individual vaccines, which shows the exact prices, quantities and order dates.
The price increases of the companies Biontech/Pfizer and Moderna in the middle of the pandemic are particularly striking.
In December 2020, Germany ordered almost 39 million vaccine doses from Biontech/Pfizer at a price of around 15.50 euros per dose.
Nine months later, when the government ordered a further 168 million vaccine doses, the average single dose was already around 23.20 euros – an increase of around 50 percent.
Moderna increased the price by more than 50 percent from EUR 19.50 to EUR 29.70 after just three months.
Helge Braun: Must probably destroy parts of the delivery
The chairman of the Drug Commission of the German Medical Association, Wolf-Dieter Ludwig, told the media that he did not consider these prices fundamentally offensive because they were comparable to influenza vaccines, for example.
However, he finds the price increases in the middle of the pandemic disturbing.
"I actually think that's dubious, because in view of the economic turnover, one could have stayed at the old price," said Ludwig.
However, it is the case that “we needed the vaccines” and “the pharmaceutical companies were able to push through these prices”.
The chairman of the budget committee of the Bundestag, the CDU politician and former head of the chancellery Helge Braun, admitted that he "neither knows the individual dose prices of the various vaccines nor the other contractual clauses".
In his own words, Braun assumes that Germany still has purchase obligations for corona vaccines worth two billion euros for the current year 2023.
"That's far too much in the foreseeable future, so that the destruction of a large part of the delivery would have to be expected," said Braun.
ani/mgo/AFP
