The government has decided to send 358,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines to Kenya.
This is stated in an agreement that Denmark has entered into with the East African country. This is done in a collaboration between the Statens Serum Institut and Unicef.
It writes Jyllands-Posten.
Minister for Development Aid Flemming Møller Mortensen (S) calls it a good solution that Kenya’s citizens can now look forward to an extra arsenal of vaccines to fight covid-19.
– It is a really good day, because now we have the opportunity through the close cooperation that Denmark and Kenya have had for decades, to help them – and they need them, he says to Jyllands-Posten.
Usually, it is Covax under the World Health Organization WHO distributes vaccines to the third world.
However, in order for security and logistics to be in order, Covax will only distribute directly from the manufacturer to the individual recipient country.
Therefore, Covax will not accept vaccines, which have already been a trip around other countries, which according to Development Minister Flemming Møller Mortensen has forced the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to find alternative solutions to get rid of the excess vaccine from the Danish cold stores.
The government’s solution of donating 358,000 excess doses to Kenya meets with support from Professor Jan Pravsgaard Christensen, Department of Immunology and Microbiology at the University of Copenhagen.
He says it is a good help and a sensible form of development aid.
– It would then be too foolish to leave them in a refrigerator in Denmark and get too old, he says to Jyllands-Posten.
The government has had to find a solution to an acute situation where over 500,000 approved doses of Astrazeneca exceed its shelf life over the next few months.
The agreement has fallen into place after a majority of parties in the Folketing have for a long time been pushing for the vaccines that Denmark does not have to use itself to be sent to the countries in the third world.
The vaccines from AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson have been removed from the Danish vaccination program because the Danish Health and Medicines Authority assesses that the risk of rare cases of blood clots is greater than the benefits of avoiding hospitalization due to coronary heart disease.
In addition, more than 200,000 vaccine doses from Johnson & Johnson are refrigerated. But here there is no acute problem in relation to expiration date as they can last till 2023.
Source: The Nordic Page