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Jens Spahn: "We should have communicated that more clearly"
Photo: FILIP SINGER / EPA
Millions of people in Germany should get a booster vaccination in the coming weeks.
The most popular vaccine is likely to be the product from Pfizer / Biontech.
Now the Managing Minister of Health Jens Spahn has again defended the heavily criticized upper order limits for the corona vaccine from Biontech.
The demand has risen insanely in the past two weeks, "we will be delivering six million Biontech cans from tomorrow alone," said Spahn.
Due to this massive demand, »our Biontech warehouse is currently running empty«.
"And the fact is that at the moment (...) - that is, from the week after next, when the big delivery was made - I don't have more than two to three million vaccine doses of Biontech." He admitted: "Had that we have to communicate more clearly. "
"There is enough vaccine"
But there is a good, just as effective alternative with the vaccine from Moderna.
"Well, the key message is: there is enough vaccine," Spahn emphasized.
In a letter to the federal states, the Federal Ministry of Health announced restrictions on order quantities for the Biontech vaccine for the next few weeks.
To this end, the preparation from Moderna is to be used more frequently for booster vaccinations.
As a justification, reference was also made to the fact that otherwise from the middle of the 1st quarter of 2022 stored Moderna cans threatened to expire.
Biontech's vaccine currently accounts for over 90 percent of orders.
For the time being, practices should be able to order a maximum of 30 doses of Biontech per week, vaccination centers and mobile vaccination teams 1020 doses.
There should be no upper limits for orders from Moderna.
By the end of the year there will be enough vaccine for everyone with a total of around 24 million doses from Biontech and 26 million from Moderna.
Federal states and medical representatives sharply criticized the announcement.
The booster vaccinations are now picking up speed, there are concerns that the Biontech cap could slow it down.
At the conference of health ministers of the federal states (GMK), the order limits will also be discussed on Monday, as the Bavarian head of department and GMK chairman Klaus Holetschek (CSU) announced. According to his own information, the CSU politician spoke to the Mainz company Biontech about additional deliveries of the corona vaccine. He assumes that Health Minister Spahn will do the same, says Holetschek on Deutschlandfunk. "I hope that Biontech can help again and provide additional vaccine."
Spahn wants to speak in the morning at a press conference announced at short notice in Berlin on vaccination with Moderna and Biontech.
Two vaccine experts will be there: the head of the research group for infection immunology and vaccine research at the Berlin Charité, Leif Erik Sander, and the president of the Paul Ehrlich Institute, Klaus Cichutek.
asc / dpa / Reuters
