The demand for vaccines in Germany has decreased extremely. There is currently more vaccine available than needed. Cans that expire must be discarded. So far this has been limited. It could soon be different.
Despite declining willingness to vaccinate in Germany, half of the federal states have not yet had to destroy any unused or expired vaccination doses to a significant extent. In a survey by the German Press Agency, seven of the 16 state governments stated that disposal of the corona vaccine could largely be avoided. “At no time did the vaccine have to be destroyed because it could not be used because the shelf life was running out,” assured a spokesman for the Hamburg health authority. Countries such as Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Hesse explained this with special measures such as a “vaccine exchange”.
In contrast, the vaccination centers in Bavaria have already disposed of around 53,000 unused vaccination doses – significantly more than any other federal state. Half of this is in the past month. “The numbers that rose in the summer are the direct consequence of a decline in the population’s willingness to vaccinate,” said the Bavarian Ministry of Health.
Not wanted here, urgently expected elsewhere
The Free State wants to return part of its unused Corona vaccination doses to the federal government so that it can donate them abroad; however, the cans must be usable for at least two months. In a letter that the dpa has received, the Federal Ministry of Health had given the federal states the opportunity to donate vaccines that are no longer required to the central warehouse of the federal government as a donation for “third countries” – provided that the active substance can be kept long enough.
To keep the vaccine from expiring, some countries have devised specific approaches. The vaccination centers in Hesse joined forces to form a “vaccine exchange”, through which vaccine that is not needed or that is surplus can be distributed at short notice. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania there are replacement lists to send doses that are left over at the end of the day to those who want to be vaccinated by SMS.
Disposal only in individual cases
Schleswig-Holstein calculates the needs of the vaccination centers as quickly as possible in order to then supply them precisely. The proportion of vaccination doses that had to be destroyed – for example because of defective cooling – is therefore “in the per mille range”, according to the Kiel Ministry. In Lower Saxony, Thuringia and Saarland, vaccine has so far only been thrown away in isolated cases, according to the information. Surplus cans should be returned to the federal government.
According to the Mainz Ministry of Health, Rhineland-Palatinate has also hardly destroyed any vaccine so far: only 200 Astrazeneca cans have been withdrawn from circulation because the best-before date has expired. In addition, according to the information, there are 490 vaccine doses from Johnson & Johnson that had expired and expired. In North Rhine-Westphalia, general practitioners only assume a number in the low three-digit range for the part of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Growing problem
The Hanseatic City of Bremen has destroyed a total of 2,715 cans since the vaccination began, 690 of them Astrazeneca cans in the past month alone. Baden-Württemberg disposed of 4,000 cans of Astrazeneca because they expired at the end of July. In Brandenburg, around 5500 vaccine doses have already expired, which, according to the ministry, only corresponds to 0.27 percent of the total amount delivered. The problem could soon get bigger, however: The North Rhine General Practitioners Association estimates that around 100,000 vaccine doses will expire in the coming weeks in North Rhine-Westphalia alone.
No current figures are available from some federal states: In Saxony-Anhalt, neither the Ministry of Health nor the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians have an overview of the vaccine doses that have been destroyed. There was no answer to corresponding dpa inquiries from Berlin and Saxony.
