Because of the late delivery date, the Ministry of Health has not fully used the additional option.
Vaccine is stored in a refrigerator.
Austria and several other EU countries have not ordered as many doses of the coronavirus vaccine from the US company Moderna as they could have.
Austria exhausted its full contingent of the first and second EU treaties with Moderna. With an additional option, however, fewer calls were made, as the Ministry of Health in Vienna confirmed to the APA on Monday evening in a report from the Politico Internet portal. The reason: the late delivery date.
The EU Commission signed two contracts with Moderna for a total of 460 million cans. The EU authority's first contract with Moderna initially guaranteed the EU countries 80 million cans and included the option for the countries to purchase a further 80 million cans. The EU took up this option in December. Then in February the Commission signed a second contract with Moderna for 150 million cans for 2021 and 150 million cans for 2022.
A timetable published by the Hungarian government confirmed, according to Politico, that a number of EU countries had chosen not to buy any of the additional cans of Moderna from the December increase. According to the document, 16 countries have decided against it: Poland, Romania, Belgium, Greece, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Ireland, Lithuania, Slovenia, Latvia, Estonia, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Malta and Hungary.
The schedule also showed Austria, Portugal and Croatia were placing smaller orders for the second batch of Moderna cans, according to the report. The Ministry of Health told APA: Austria had used the full quota of 1.57 million doses from the first EU contract with Moderna, and the full ratio of 2.94 million doses from the second contract.
“Only from one additional option for the third and fourth quarter has Austria called only 230,000 cans because of the late delivery date in 2021,” it said.
Germany and Denmark both decided to increase. Germany, which originally ordered 14 million cans, placed a second order for more than 35 million; Denmark placed a second order of nearly five million, an increase from its first order of more than one million.
The Hungarian government's schedule, which is not dated, only appears to show supplies from the EU's first contract, so it is unclear whether those countries placed orders when the Commission signed a second contract with Moderna in February, according to Politico “noted.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's chief of staff released the delivery schedule and two pages of the EU sales contract with vaccine maker Moderna on Sunday after opposition parties accused the government of not buying enough Western vaccines.
