In October 2022 so far, authorities have had to dispose of more than 17,000 expired doses of the Pfizer paediatric vaccine. According to the minister, a total of 78,800 doses have been destroyed this month.
Lenert explained that vaccine manufacturers often impose a minimum number of doses on the European Commission - which means that even when states have already ordered enough vaccine from a producer, they are still de facto obliged to order additional doses due to unknown factors such as virus mutations, the population’s willingness to be vaccinated, and the real effectiveness of the vaccine.
Moderna and Pfizer have been officially asked to offer a service to recover expired doses and then destroy them, as a large number of countries have raised complaints due to lack of storage capacity.
