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It should start in the next few days: shortly before the turn of the year, Basel-based pharmaceutical manufacturer Lonza received permission from Swissmedic to start producing the new vaccine from American pharmaceutical company Moderna. The Walliser Boat reports that. Swissmedic’s green light is an important sign that work is being done behind the scenes for the actual approval of the vaccine.
Visp VS production lines will start up in the next few days. “Our teams are working hard on the final preparatory work for the systems execution,” says Renzo Cicillini, Lonza plant manager in Visp. “By the end of 2021, 300 million cans will be produced at Visp,” Cicillini said. However, the obstacles in Switzerland regarding the supply of vaccines will not be overcome so quickly.
False start of the vaccination campaign
The Pfizer / Biontech vaccine has already been approved in Switzerland. The first cantons will start the vaccination campaign on Monday. Appointments were booked in no time. The telephone lines collapsed. Zurich’s health director Natalie Rickli (44) stayed to apologize. There simply aren’t enough vaccines to meet the demand.
A true false start. But even if two vaccines will soon be approved and will be produced on a large scale: Switzerland signed agreements with Pfizer and Moderna late, with Pfizer in December, a new order with Moderna in the same month, and therefore it is at the end of the global queue. .
Switzerland had ordered three million doses of the only vaccine approved to date by Pfizer and Biontech. About 107,000 cans were delivered. According to the “NZZ am Sonntag”, not only is the vaccine missing. The cantons would lack infrastructure and staff. Furthermore, the federal government did not award the contract for the corresponding IT solution until December 17, without which mass vaccination would be “hardly possible.” Regardless of this, some cantons rely on their own solutions: federalism, which in no way accelerates the vaccination campaign at the national level.
Moderna vaccine leaves Switzerland after production
For Moderna’s vaccine production in Visp, 200 employees work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The Valais plans to produce 800,000 cans per day. This would practically cover the total needs of Switzerland in a week. But the coveted ampoules are not ready for use on the Visp market.
The frozen liquid produced in Valais is first packaged and transported to the Spanish pharmaceutical company Rovi near Madrid. There, the active ingredient from Switzerland is packaged in commercially available cans and then shipped around the world.
There is competition around the world to see who will get vaccinated first. Like the Pfizer / Biontech vaccine, the active ingredient Moderna produced in Valais will only be available in Switzerland in very small quantities. The reason: Switzerland ordered too late and in too small quantities.
Switzerland acted too hesitantly and too late
Switzerland ordered three million more doses of vaccines from Moderna in December. The 7.5 million guaranteed doses are enough for 3.75 million people, almost half of the Swiss population. But a third wave is “as safe as Amen in church,” making it even more important that as many people as possible get vaccinated as soon as possible. This is what Basel lawyer and health expert Andreas Faller says, who was deputy director of the Federal Office of Public Health (BAG) until 2012.
“Switzerland has placed an order ordering only a fraction of the vaccine that is actually required from potential manufacturers,” says Faller (54) in the “SonntagsZeitung”. The fact that Switzerland has far fewer doses available compared to countries like Israel, Spain or the US is the result of a failed policy. Because even if Visp’s Moderna vaccine is approved in the next few days, Switzerland won’t get enough doses.
“This is a fiasco”
By waiting and watching, the federal government tried to reduce financial risk. “When compared to the costs of the pandemic, the loss of a few million excess doses of vaccine is negligible,” says Faller. “People die, the economy is damaged, every minute is precious.”
“This is a fiasco”, says the National Councilor of the Valais FDP, Philippe Nantermod (36), to the “NZZ am Sonntag”. “Switzerland would have had the means to obtain additional doses of vaccines faster and to prepare the vaccine better.”
