[ad_1]
Switzerland might want to destroy 10.3 million doses of Moderna’s vaccine towards COVID-19, after they expired this week, the well being ministry mentioned on Saturday (Sep 24).
The ministry mentioned it had no selection however to remove the jabs after the doses expired final Wednesday, in line with Keystone-ATS.
It instructed the information company that 2.5 million of the doses have been being saved at a Swiss military logistics base and seven.8 million have been in an exterior storage depot in Belgium.
The ministry confirmed an preliminary report on Swiss information web site Beobachter, which estimated that the doses set for destruction have been value round 280 million Swiss francs (US$285 million).
The well being ministry, which didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark from AFP, pointed to its early procurement technique within the race to develop vaccines to counter the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.
It ordered doses from varied producers to keep away from turning into reliant on vaccines that may finally show ineffective and to protect towards any supply issues.
The truth that vaccines based mostly on mRNA know-how, from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, turned out to be efficient, left Switzerland with a big surplus of doses.
In June, the Swissinfo information web site estimated that Switzerland had an extra of about 38 million doses of assorted COVID-19 vaccines, that may expire earlier than the year-end.
The ministry mentioned that about 3.5 million doses of the brand new, tailored Moderna vaccine could be accessible when Switzerland kicks off its subsequent booster marketing campaign subsequent month.
Switzerland, which has counted 13,556 deaths from COVID-19 because the begin of the pandemic, has absolutely vaccinated practically 70 per cent of its inhabitants of 8.7 million.
(channelnewsasia.com)
[ad_2]
Source link
