Switzerland to destroy 10 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine

World

Published: 2022-09-24 21:11

Last Updated: 2024-03-18 12:00


Switzerland to destroy 10 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine
Switzerland to destroy 10 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine

The Swiss Ministry of Health announced Saturday that it will destroy 10.3 million doses of Moderna's vaccine after it expires this week.

The ministry said it had no choice but to destroy the doses after their expiration date last Wednesday, according to the Keystone-ATS news agency.

The agency quoted the ministry as saying that 2.5 million doses are stored in a logistics base of the Swiss army and 7.8 million in an external storage warehouse in Belgium.

The ministry confirmed a report by the Swiss news website "Biobuster" that estimated the value of the doses to be destroyed at about 280 million Swiss francs ($285 million).

The Ministry of Health, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment from AFP, referred to the early procurement strategy in the race to develop vaccines to counter the Covid pandemic.

Switzerland requested many doses from various manufacturers, and the stability of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines made its surplus doses large.

The "Swissinfo" news site estimated in June that Switzerland has a surplus of about 38 million doses of various Covid vaccines that expire before the end of the year.

The ministry said that about 3.5 million doses of the new and modified Moderna vaccine will be available when Switzerland starts the next booster campaign next month.

Switzerland, which has recorded 13,556 deaths with Covid since the beginning of the epidemic, has vaccinated about 70 percent of its population of 8.7 million people.