“National stocks of Covid-19 vaccine are high and the need for Covid-19 vaccine has fallen,” said the ministry spokesman. The federal government is therefore already “in talks with the European Commission and the vaccine manufacturers about contract adjustments”.
The basis for the existing purchase commitments are joint European procurement contracts. The EU Commission has already expressed concern about a billion-dollar surplus of unneeded corona vaccines. The Commission supports calls from member states for renegotiations with manufacturers, Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides told the newspapers of the Funke media group on Friday. These should serve to “adapt the supply contracts to new realities”.
Kyriakides announced a meeting of the European Vaccine Steering Committee for early next year. She wants to consult with the health ministers of the EU countries and the manufacturers on how the vaccine supply can be further adapted to local needs.
The federal government’s negotiations were based on the “principle of good faith,” the ministry spokesman told AFP. In contract law, this legal principle means that contracting parties not only have to fulfill the obligations stipulated in a contract, but also have to take other legitimate interests of the contracting party into account.
The demand for corona vaccinations in Germany is currently very low. According to information from the Robert Koch Institute on Friday, only around 22,500 vaccinations per day were administered on average over the past seven days. At the peak of the vaccination campaign last year, values of well over one million vaccinations per day were still being achieved.
If the vaccination campaign continues at the current pace, it would take – mathematically speaking – more than 18 years to vaccinate the current stockpile of 151 million doses alone. Of course, the vaccines don’t last that long. After the expiration date, they must be destroyed.
As of December 1, the Federal Ministry of Health was aware of 2.6 million cans destroyed in Germany, the spokesman said. However, the actual number is likely to be higher: Because with the delivery of the vaccines, the “proper handling” is the responsibility of the vaccination centers, the spokesman said. The federal government has no information about the total number of doses that were destroyed by the competent vaccination centers.
The state of Berlin meanwhile announced on Friday that it would finally end its state vaccination campaign at the end of the year. Then the last remaining vaccination center would be closed, the mobile vaccination teams would be dissolved, announced Health Senator Ulrike Grote (Greens).
Grotes Haus cited falling demand as justification. From the turn of the year, vaccinations in Berlin should only be administered by resident doctors. According to the information, almost 3.2 corona vaccinations have been administered in Berlin since the start of the vaccination campaign two years ago.
According to the Federal Ministry of Health, the majority of the purchase commitments outstanding until the end of 2023 are with the Mainz-based Biontech Group: it alone is to deliver 92.4 million of the 130.7 million cans ordered. 18.7 million doses are said to come from Sanofi, 13.6 million doses from Novavax and 6.1 million doses from Moderna.
