After stocking up early on Covid vaccines, Switzerland has to destroy expired Moderna shots worth $400 million
GENEVA - Switzerland will need to destroy 10.3 million doses of Moderna's vaccine against Covid-19, as they have expired, the health ministry said on Saturday.
The ministry said it had no choice but to eliminate the vaccine after the doses expired last Wednesday.
The ministry confirmed an initial report on Swiss news site Beobachter, which estimated that the doses set for destruction were worth around 280 million Swiss francs (S$400 million).
The health ministry, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment from AFP, pointed to its early procurement strategy in the race to have vaccines to counter the global Covid-19 pandemic.
It ordered doses from various manufacturers to avoid becoming reliant on vaccines that might eventually prove ineffective and to guard against any delivery problems.
The vaccines based on mRNA technology, from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, turned out to be effective, and left Switzerland with a large surplus of doses.
In June, the Swissinfo news site estimated that Switzerland had an excess of some 38 million doses of various Covid-19 vaccines, that would expire before the year-end.
The ministry said that some 3.5 million doses of the new, adapted Moderna vaccine would be available when Switzerland kicks off its next booster campaign next month.
Switzerland, which has recorded 13,556 deaths from Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic, has fully vaccinated nearly 70 per cent of its population of 8.7 million. - AFP
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