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Jens Spahn: "Trust is the most important thing when vaccinating"
Photo:
Jürgen Heinrich / imago images / Jürgen Heinrich
Federal Minister of Health Jens Spahn (CDU) wants to give citizens the opportunity to quickly report possible effects and side effects via app after a corona vaccination.
"We'll make it very, very transparent," said Spahn on Tuesday in the ARD "Tagesthemen".
This applies to the approval of vaccines, but also to the time thereafter.
"Trust is the most important thing when it comes to vaccination." The minister did not initially provide any further details on the application's new function.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced on Tuesday that it intends to present its opinion on the vaccine from the Mainz company Biontech and its US partner Pfizer on December 21 - that is, eight days earlier than before.
The EU Commission then has to give its formal approval.
This is a formality and could also be done within a day.
This would pave the way for mass vaccinations to begin in all EU member states.
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Spahn described it as a very good signal that, as things stand today, there will be approval in the EU before Christmas Eve.
After that, you can start vaccinations within two to four days.
In Germany, the vaccination centers and vaccination structures have been operational since Tuesday.
In a first step, after approval, “around 400,000 cans could be delivered”.
After that, step by step, week after week, there are more doses.
First of all, Germany will get the vaccine as agreed under the European treaties, emphasized the minister.
These are eleven to 13 million vaccine doses by the end of the first quarter.
Later in the year, the delivery of vaccination doses, which had been agreed bilaterally with the manufacturers, was added.
These are an additional 20 million cans from the German manufacturer Biontech alone.
Negotiations were still ongoing with other promising vaccine manufacturers such as Curevac, IDT and Moderna.
In terms of the app, Spahn had already responded to criticism of the application and substantiated his ideas for improvements in November.
An improved version of the app was available for download at the end of the month.
With the update, among other things, the risk check can be carried out several times a day.
The federal government's corona warning app has been downloaded more than 24 million times to date.
Experts estimate that it is actively used by around 22 million people.
The effectiveness of the app increases the more people actually use the application.
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