Thousands of doses remain in Germany: countries are returning corona vaccines

Due to the faltering vaccination campaign in Germany, thousands of vaccine doses are left lying around.

Some countries are now giving the vaccine back to the federal government.

Munich - Over 50 million people in Germany have received their first vaccination against the coronavirus *, almost half of the population is even vaccinated.

Although Germany had to wait months for a sufficient supply of vaccine and now has enough, the vaccination campaign has stalled well before the stated goal of 85 percent.

A clear setback in the fight against the Delta variant *.

In order not to let the left vaccine * go bad in Germany's camps, many countries are giving their doses back to the federal government.

This complies with a letter from the Federal Ministry of Health: "Vaccine doses that are no longer used in the national vaccination campaign and whose storage allow them to be passed on to third countries as part of donations" could be returned to the central warehouse of the federal government.

Corona vaccine: Astrazeneca is to be distributed to non-EU countries

If the funds can be kept for at least two months, they would be

distributed to third countries outside the EU at no cost

from August, according to

.

However, this does not apply to the vaccines from Biontech and Moderna, but above all to Astrazeneca * and Johnson & Johnson *.

Substances from medical practices and company doctors should not go back to the federal government for the time being.

First of all, those cans from Astrazeneca and Johnson & Johnson are being considered that have been stored in distribution centers and have not been used since delivery.

The letter states that this is the only way to ensure pharmaceutical quality, efficacy and safety.

Corona vaccine: Hamburg sends 60,000 doses back

Martin Helfrich, the spokesman for the Hamburg health authority, confirmed to the

that he would make use of this option. It's about 60,000 cans in 6,000 bottles from Astrazeneca. Berlin is also planning to return up to 62,400 cans. The funds would last for several months. In North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein the return of vaccine stocks would still be examined, Lower Saxony considers this option

"likely"

according to the

. It is just not yet foreseeable how many stocks they want to dispose of.

Overall, the federal government wants to give away at least 30 million vaccine doses to other countries in 2021. The remaining cans from Biontech * and Moderna * are initially to be kept in a central federal warehouse and will not be distributed.