For a long time, people around the world longed for a corona vaccine.
Also in Germany - but obviously not every serum in this country is “good enough”.
Munich - There are constant discussions about the AstraZeneca corona vaccine *.
Doubts about the quality and effectiveness of the serum were decidedly refuted by experts.
Nevertheless, some patients seem to prefer not to have their vaccination appointment for the time being than to have the vaccine from the British-Swedish pharmaceutical company administered against the coronavirus *.
Now it became known: AstraZeneca apparently wants to limit its delivery to the EU.
In the second quarter of 2021, significantly fewer vaccine doses should go to the European Union than was actually contractually agreed.
According to a report by the
Reuters
news
agency
, an EU representative said that AstraZeneca will deliver fewer than 90 million units to member states between April and June instead of 180 million vaccine doses.
It is not the manufacturer's first bad news for the EU: a few weeks ago, a delivery bottleneck brought the EU to the brink of tangible diplomatic scandal.
Corona vaccine from AstraZeneca: slow-moving in Germany despite expert praise
The situation seems bizarre: The unpopular vaccine could become scarce again From politicians and renowned virologists such as Professor Christian Drosten, there is support for the AstraZeneca product.
Drosten thinks it is much better than his reputation *, as he said in his NDR podcast.
But the reputation is only ruined ...
Because there are no scientific doubts about the AstraZeneca vaccine, politicians recently considered using the excess vaccine doses sensibly.
So far, the serum has proven to be a real slow-moving, reports from vaccination centers that vaccination appointments were missed have increased in recent days.
However, the authorities do not want to let such a valuable good as a corona vaccine go to waste.
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That is why some politicians, such as Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, have already discussed a change in the vaccination plan *.
“We have to carefully weigh up this vaccination priority again.
To be honest, already in the next few weeks, when you see how much is left of Astrazeneca, ”said Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder on Tuesday evening at
Bild.de.
“It's really absurd that we have a vaccine that nobody wants.
That's pretty annoying, this Astrazeneca story.
This impression that it is not effective, and then it lies around. "
Federal Minister of Health Jens Spahn * also wants to react - like his colleagues at state level - to the AstraZeneca vaccine doses that were left behind.
Teachers should be preferred in the vaccination hierarchy.
In addition, it was announced in several federal states that they would soon be making a comprehensive range of Corona vaccinations for police officers.
The AstraZeneca vaccine would then be an option for all of these vaccinations.
Hundreds of thousands of these vaccine doses have remained unused in the federal states.
The Federal Ministry of Health said they had delivered over 1.4 million doses to the federal states.
According to the Robert Koch Institute, however, only 212,000 of these vaccine doses were injected.
The replenishment could now be a long time coming.
(kh) * Merkur.de is part of the Ippen-Digital network