Romania Destroys 1 Million Expired Vaccine Doses Worth around EUR 3 M

Romania has to destroy almost a million vaccine doses of AstraZeneca after they reach their expiration date. The country tried to sell and donate the doses about to expire, but only a few countries showed an interest in accepting or buying from the Romanian Government.

We have received a total of 4,478,000 doses of AstraZeneca. 852,356 doses were administered and distributed in total, plus what entered the resale or donation mechanism, 3,300,000 doses, of which these 917,000 came out of the validity period.

Valeriu Gheorghita, Coordinator of the Vaccination Campaign in Romania

From a total of 4.5 million AstraZeneca vaccine doses that Romania has, only one million were administrated among the Romanian population. The vaccination campaign in Romania is a failure, as only 40% of the population has taken the jab.

We currently have 917,800 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine. Most of them in the regional storage centres. Another part can be found in the public health departments. The procedure for destroying these doses is being completed in the next period from the discussions I had with colleagues from the Ministry of Health because they must be taken out of stock and given for destruction. So they will not be returned to the distributor.

Valeriu Gheorghita, President of CNCAV

As ridiculous as it sounds, Romania loses a large sum of money on undistributed vaccine doses that now have reached an expiration date. Precisely, Romania loses 3 EUR for each dose of Astra Zeneca destroyed.

This is the result of the mismanagement in coordinating the vaccination campaign. Once again, this proof shows that those responsible are incapable of managing these emergencies, let alone minimise financial losses of this kind.