MADRID – Recently, more than 1 million corona vaccines in Spain had to be destroyed. The vaccines have expired and should no longer be administered. The Spanish government mainly shifts the responsibility to the regional authorities.
The main reason why so many vaccines have to be destroyed is that they are past their expiration date. Most of the expired corona vaccines were stored in warehouses in various autonomous regions.
Why do so many vaccines have to be destroyed?
The successive changes in the approach to the vaccination campaign have ensured that a million vaccines are no longer usable. For example, early in the vaccination campaign, it was determined that Janssen’s vaccine could only be administered to a very small age group. And, furthermore, AstraZeneca was also considered unsuitable for a part of the population after several side effects were noted.
Also, more than once, Spain received a massive amount of vaccines in a short period of time. Although these were distributed among the regions, it took too long to vaccinate so many people in that short time.
In addition, Spain wanted to send many vaccines to third-world countries through the Covax program. However, due to complex shipping requirements, countries can only accept vaccines with an expiration date longer than 3 months. Therefore, many vaccines no longer meet the requirements to be shipped to these countries.
Vaccines Janssen and AstraZeneca expired
The Spanish Medicines Agency reports that approximately 69,000 doses of Pfizer, 68,000 doses of Moderna, over 400,000 doses of AstraZeneca, and approximately 530,000 doses of Janssen are no longer usable. The Ministry of Health of Spain informs the Spanish news site El Espanõl that they are not responsible for the vaccines that are no longer usable, because once the vaccines have been distributed, their administration is the responsibility of the autonomous regions.
How far is Spain with vaccinations?
According to the latest data from the Ministry of Health in Spain of March 4, 2022, more than 98 million vaccines have been distributed in Spain, of which more than 92 million have been administered. Meanwhile, 91.1% of all Spaniards over the age of 12 have been fully vaccinated. For the over 40s, this percentage is almost 95%.
In the meantime, almost 80% of all people over 40 have also received a booster shot. Of the children between 5 and 11 years of age, 57.6% have received at least one shot and more than 20% have already been fully vaccinated.
Also read: Made in Spain corona vaccine
