Switzerland: Will destroy 10 million doses of Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine

Forced to proceed with the destruction of 10.3 million doses of Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine are its principles Switzerlandas as announced by the Ministry of Health, their expiry date passed last Wednesday.

The ministry explained that it had no other options, confirming information from the Beobachter news website that the installments to destruction cost the public some 280 million Swiss francs (294 million euros).

In addition, 2.5 million doses remain stored at an army logistics base and another 7.8 million are kept in a warehouse in Belgium, the ministry said, stressing that its vaccine supply strategy from the beginning was to order more doses than ,what they needed for the 8.7 million inhabitants of Switzerland.

The country thus ordered doses of vaccines from various pharmaceutical companies, to avoid its dependence on vaccines that could prove ineffective, supply problems and breach of contractual obligations.

In June, the news website Swissinfo estimated that Switzerland has a surplus of 38 million doses of COVID vaccines, which are expected to expire before the end of the year.

The ministry assured that approximately 3.5 million doses of its new vaccine Modern they will be available when Switzerland starts its next booster dose campaign in October.

Switzerland, which has recorded 13,556 patient deaths due to complications of COVID-19 since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pandemic in its territory, has fully vaccinated about 70% of its population.