Unused Covid-19 vaccines here cannot be donated to Covax

Covax aims to accelerate development and manufacture of Covid vaccines and to guarantee fair access around the world. File picture

Any unused Covid-19 vaccines in Ireland cannot be donated to the global Covax initiative, AstraZeneca's Irish representative has said.

Covax aims to accelerate development and manufacture of Covid vaccines and to guarantee fair access around the world.

However, for safety reasons Covax only accepts vaccines direct from the manufacturing supply line with support from donor governments, Dan Wygal, country president at AstraZeneca Ireland said.

He praised the Irish vaccine rollout as “the envy of the world” and said the company had now delivered 1.4m doses here.

Government data, however, shows up to Tuesday only 1.189m doses were used.

It is not yet clear how many doses will never be used. A HSE audit of remaining vaccines is now expected to be complete this week, with 70% of sites having reported by the weekend, a spokeswoman said.

Originally, the AstraZeneca vaccine was planned to be the most used here, but a combination of supply issues and rulings on health impacts changed this.

Referring to the recent decision to offer people who had a first shot of AstraZeneca a second shot of another vaccine, Mr Wygal said: “I think it is obviously quite a complex issue. All health authorities are working with the information they have at hand and looking after the best interests of their population.” 

He would not speculate on the number of AstraZeneca doses potentially left over, saying: “there was always a mindset of minimising waste and expediting access” in the HSE.

“We [Ireland] are now at a vaccinated rate in the population of over 90%, which would have frankly been viewed as not possible,” he said.

AstraZeneca offers its vaccine on a not-for-profit basis, and has distributed “1.2bn doses of our vaccine to more than 170 countries". 

This includes “greater than 122m doses” to Covax in 129 countries.

Government to donate 1m vaccine doses

The Government has now announced it will donate 1m vaccine doses to Covax.

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said this was the first step in supporting the initiative, adding: “it is important for Ireland to demonstrate solidarity with developing countries".

Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney also welcomed the decision. Minister of State for Overseas Aid and the Diaspora Colm Brophy said by year’s end Ireland’s donation will come to €7m.

Separately the Irish public has directly donated to Unicef for 1.814m vaccine doses under the ‘get a vaccine, give a vaccine’ drive.

Meanwhile, European Commission president Ursula Von Der Leyen has said the pace of vaccination against Covid-19 must be quickened to avert "a pandemic of the unvaccinated".

Announcing a new donation of another 200m vaccine doses by the middle of next year for non-EU countries Ms von der Leyen said she was also worried by the varying vaccination rates within the EU.