Covid vaccine doses go to waste in Switzerland amid huge stockpile
Swiss warehouses are bulging with unused Covid-19 vaccine doses, and more are on the way. But millions of out-of-date vials are being destroyed amid stagnating demand and complex negotiations over donating them to developing countries.
“The Swiss ordered way too much from the beginning - about four times as much as the population at one stage. And they just continued to put in orders,” Patrick Durisch, a health policy expert at the Swiss NGO Public Eye, tells SWI swissinfo.ch.
Worldwide, 13.3 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been administered. In Switzerland, about 70% of the population have had at least one Covid dose, a figure that has barely moved over the past year. Only 11.5% got a booster jab in the past six months.