Switzerland destroys 19 million Covid-19 vaccine doses

Between December 2020 and the end of July 2023, Switzerland administered 17 million Covid-19 vaccine doses; it destroyed 18.6 million doses. Keystone / Laurent Gillieron

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Switzerland has destroyed 18.6 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines that have expired. This represents more than the number of jabs that have been administered countrywide, a parliamentary committee reported.

In its annual report published on Tuesday, the House of Representatives Management Committee noted that the destruction of more Covid-19 vaccine doses will be unavoidable. Since last March, 8.2 million doses have been destroyed. The Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) gave the statistics to the committee for its investigations into the Swiss government’s vaccination strategy, which are listed in the report.

Between December 2020 and the end of July 2023, 17 million Covid-19 vaccine doses were administered in Switzerland.

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The parliamentary committee deplores the fact that the implementation of the Swiss vaccine procurement strategy has resulted in the destruction of so many vaccines bought by the federal authorities. But it believes that this was an inevitable consequence of the government’s strategy.

The Federal Council has presented the arguments for this strategy in a transparent and credible way, the committee said. On various occasions, it explained that it had always attached greater importance to rapid access to a sufficient number of doses than to the risk of ending up with too many vaccines.

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In view of the potential social and economic consequences of an insufficient supply, this approach was appropriate, the committee concludes.

In the event of a future pandemic, the committee expects the government to communicate transparently within the federal administration and to parliament on the management of vaccines. Any supply strategy should be reviewed regularly, and the management of surplus doses must be defined in advance.

The committee also stressed the crucial importance of international cooperation on supply. Switzerland has played an active and successful part in the World Health Organization (WHO’s) COVAX programme: a total of almost eight million doses, including 3.8 million in 2023, have been donated to other countries. Conversely, cooperation with the European Union has not been easy.

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