Uptake “increasingly scarce”: Brussels tries to renegotiate contracts
Portugal was forced to dispose of around 3.5 million doses of vaccines against Covid-19 last year, because they had passed their ‘use by dates’. The reason could not be clearer – adhesion to these vaccines is waning.
Says Público, “in the beginning there was a rush (by people) for the vaccines against Covid-19. Now there are millions of doses left over, and many have already gone into the rubbish”.
The European Commission, which bulk purchased for member States during the pandemic, is “trying to renegotiate contracts with pharmaceutical companies” as it is clear people have lost their appetite for these shots which, in final analysis, do not stop transmission, do not stop people from getting Covid-19, and are being increasingly linked to cases of sudden heart attacks, and the phenomenon of ‘excess deaths’.
Even if a ‘new variant’ came onto the scene, the argument for the vaccines has ‘slipped’.
Explain reports today, Portugal’s level of “non-use” is actually one of the lowest in Europe. Thus, the millions of vaccines trashed in other countries is a great deal higher.
How much this has cost Brussels is “unknown, because contracts with pharmaceutical companies are confidential. Even so, one can estimate that it will be millions of euros that have been wasted”, says Onovo online – while SIC Notícias adds that many more vaccines will be coming up against limits of validity as the months go by.
What is known is that Portugal “celebrated 14 contracts with six suppliers” of these vaccines, and “around 40 million of a total of 61.7 million doses ordered and acquired for the period until 2023 having been delivered, according to data from the ministry of health, cited by Público”.
In December last year, official sources reported that 26 million doses of the vaccines had been administered in Portugal over two years. Added to this “Portugal has donated around 8.1 million vaccines and resold over 2.6 million, making a total of 10.7 million vaccines made available to reduce asymmetries”.
By coincidence, as Brussels attempts to renegotiate its bulk orders, the World Health Organisation has finally declared an end to the pandemic, after three years and four months.
