More than 100,000 coronavirus vaccines thrown away

More than 100,000 coronavirus vaccines thrown away

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More than 100,000 coronavirus vaccines thrown away in Spain’s Madrid.

Since the coronavirus vaccination programme began until October 29, 117,977 doses of various coronavirus vaccines have been thrown out according to the regional government of Madrid.

According to the Madrid health department’s response to an information request submitted through the Transparency Portal, the majority of the doses were discarded as they were “past their deadline for administration to patients.”

According to Cadena SER radio network, the document shows that the rest of the doses were thrown away “due to damage or incidents in the cold chain.” The network calculated that just over 1 per cent of all the coronavirus vaccines delivered to Madrid from the health ministry has been thrown away.

It is estimated that the doses which were discarded could have been used to inoculate around 77,000 people. This is due to the fact that some of them were Janssen shots which only require a single dose.

A Department of Health spokesperson commented: “Vaccines are going to expire in the Madrid region because the Health Ministry is focusing on Pfizer and has not allowed [us] to keep vaccinating with AstraZeneca or Janssen, indicating the need to administer second doses of mRNA vaccines [Pfizer or Moderna] to citizens who had received AstraZeneca or Janssen.”

The spokesperson added: “For this reason, around 100,000 doses are going to expire in Madrid, as 90% of them are Janssen or AstraZeneca. Madrid consulted with the Health Ministry about returning them for potential donations, but the ministry ruled this out, indicating they should be destroyed.”


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Alex
Written by

Alex Glenn

Originally from the UK, Alex is based in Almeria and is a web reporter for The Euro Weekly News covering international and Spanish national news. Got a news story you want to share? Then get in touch at editorial@euroweeklynews.com.

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