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BERLIN: Germany could offer coronavirus vaccines to all who want them for the summer if a third vaccine from Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca or CureVac gets EU approval, the Health Minister said on Tuesday (December 29), Jens Spahn.
Spahn was questioned during an interview broadcast live on the website of the massive-selling newspaper Bild about media reports that Germany had so far only received four million doses of the vaccine from Pfizer Inc and BioNTech compared to the five million injections insured by Israel, whose population is one-tenth that of Germany.
“We haven’t asked for enough,” Spahn said. “We expect a total of 130 million doses of Moderna and BioNTech that will be enough to offer the vaccine to anyone who wants to get vaccinated.”
When asked when Germany would be in a position to make the vaccine available to all those who wish to have it, Spahn said: “It depends on whether we get more approvals, that is Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca and CureVac. Whether one or two additional vaccines They get approval. I think we’ll get to that point by summer. “
Germany launched the BioNTech / Pfizer vaccine developed by the German biotech company with its American partner over the weekend, starting in nursing homes where death rates are highest.
Europe’s largest economy has been in a tight lockdown that is expected to extend beyond January 10 as it struggles to contain a second wave of infections.
BioNTech / Pfizer is the only COVID-19 vaccine approved in the EU. Moderna has said it expects the EU, which has already obtained about 160 million injections from the US-based company, to approve its vaccine in mid-January.
German biotech firm CureVac this month began a large phase 2b / 3 clinical trial of its candidate vaccine.
J&J has said it has enrolled about 45,000 participants for the first late-stage trial of its single-dose vaccine candidate and expects interim data by the end of January.
A high-level EU drug regulator has said the bloc will likely not be able to approve the vaccine developed by drug maker AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford in January.
Spahn said that if a third vaccine is approved in the EU, Germany could theoretically achieve herd immunity through inoculation next year.
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