The telegraph
Italians accuse Germany of having more than its fair share of vaccine distribution in Europe
Italians vying for Covid-19’s vaccination nominations on Monday complained about the “extra doses” of the Pfizer vaccine delivered to Germany as part of a scheme designed to treat all EU countries equally. Some politicians and public health experts were angered by the news that Germany received 10 times the number of doses from Italy on the first day of the vaccine’s launch. “The bills don’t match,” said Italian virologist Roberto Burioni on Twitter, pointing to the big discrepancy. Spain, Sweden, Croatia, Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovenia and others received 9,750 doses each. Germany, the largest EU member state and home to BioNTech, which developed the vaccine with Pfizer, received 151,125, a number that is close to 9,750 doses for each of the 16 German federal states. Despite complaints from politicians, Italian health ministry officials defended the jointly acquired vaccination distribution plan from the EU, which administers doses on a pro-rata basis to the 27 member states based on their Eurostat population count. Undersecretary of health Sandra Zampa called it an “absurd” controversy, noting that EU member states use different vaccine suppliers, with different delivery times. “470,000 doses will soon arrive in Italy,” said Covid-19 national commissioner Domenico Arcuri. “The 150,000 that were delivered in Germany are part of the next shipment that will arrive in our country from December 28th. There is absolutely no discrimination. “The complaints came as it emerged on Monday that a southern German state had to pour about 1,000 doses after discovering that they were not properly cooled, while separately, eight home workers in the city of Stralsund, in the northeast of the country, accidentally received five times the recommended dosage. BioNTech, based in Mainz, dispatched vaccines directly to 25 German distribution centers, possibly exceeding shipments to other parts of Europe. German health ministry officials also said Berlin had signed a separate agreement for 30 million extra doses of the Pfizer vaccine. Italy has also made separate arrangements for doses of the Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines in hopes of inoculating 13 million residents by the end of March. Italy recorded another 445 deaths from coronavirus on Monday, bringing the number of people who died of the virus since the pandemic began to 72,370.