The Romanian government officially announced today that tens of thousands of vaccines produced by AstraZeneca will be destroyed by the authorities due to the fact that they will expire at the end of June, so there is no question of their donation or resale.
The Romanian government has received many doses of AstraZeneca vaccines in recent months, but unfortunately the interest vis-à-vis vaccination with them has remained very low, so that these 35.000 expiring on June 30 represent only the beginning of a wave of expirations that will continue all summer if the doses are not donated or sold.
"We have no problems with the storage of vaccine doses, but certainly as long as the consumption of the doses that are already received has decreased, the validity period is fixed, it is six months, and indeed we have about 35.000 doses from the AstraZeneca company that they are distributed to the regional storage centers, to the public health departments and the vaccination centers, which have June 30 as the expiration date.
It is unlikely at this point that we will be able to use these doses until the end of June, and it is also unlikely that they will be able to be donated to anyone. They will probably enter into a mechanism, a clear procedure for the destruction of these doses, as a result of exiting the validity period.
There are many countries facing this situation. New stability data is accumulating and it is possible that in the next period, both the FDA and the EMA and the European Medicines Agency will decide to extend the term of stability, based on studies, of course, which will certainly show a longer term stability long."
