Covid breaking news: Spain has destroyed more than six million doses of vaccines against Covid-19 because they are expired
The Ministry of Health and the autonomous communities have already destroyed more than six million (6,070,642) doses of vaccines against Covid-19 because they have expired, according to a written response from the Government to the Vox Parliamentary Group in the Congress of Deputies to which Europa Press has had access.
Specifically, according to this document, dated January 30, 2023, the destruction of 2,003,425 doses of Moderna, 1,170,100 of AstraZeneca, 620,635 of Janssen and 2,276,482 of Pfizer/BioNtech has been carried out.
These figures include both those carried out by the autonomous communities and those carried out by the warehouses of the Ministry of Health. According to the Government, at this time there are no expired doses of these vaccines in the temporary warehouses of the Ministry of Health.
To the more than six million doses destroyed, we must add 256,230 from Pfizer/BioNTech, which, as of December 15, 2022, were pending destruction after expiring in November.
The Executive recalls that, according to current regulations, any expired vaccine “must be destroyed as would be done with any other medication.” “The process of destroying expired vaccines is part of the normal development of pharmaceutical product management,” they insist.
This destruction process is carried out by the entities designated by the Health Departments for the management of vaccines in each autonomous community.
In the case of expired vaccines that had not been distributed and deposited in the warehouses of the Ministry of Health, their destruction is carried out by the successful warehouse itself, as another service in the management of vaccine storage.