Challenges and problems in vaccine strategy

On Jan 20, 2021

At Leipzig University Hospital, pharmacy students Anne Brandt (l) and Sarah Schulz prepare six syringes from a vial of Biontech/Pfizer’s SARS-CoV-2 corona virus vaccine for the vaccination of medical staff. There are currently more requests for vaccination appointments than can be offered at the moment.

picture alliance | picture alliance | Getty Images

Since Germany kicked off its vaccination drive in late December, along with the rest of the EU, it’s come across a raft of logistical challenges.

Now, nearly a month into the program, its sluggish progress is causing frustration and concern among some German lawmakers and health professionals.

Health Minister Jens Spahn had targeted 300,000 inoculations a day, but so far the country has failed to hit that. Data from public health agency, the Robert Koch Institute, published Tuesday showed that in the previous 24 hours, just over 62,000 vaccinations (the majority of which were first doses) were carried out.

In total, since Germany began vaccinations in all its 16 states on Dec.27, almost 1.2 million people in Germany (the priority groups for now are healthcare workers, nursing home residents and staff and the elderly) have received a first dose of the coronavirus vaccine and almost 25,000 have received their second dose.

By contrast, the U.K., which was the first country in the world to approve and rollout the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine (partly developed in Germany), and then the University of Oxford-AstraZeneca candidate, started its Covid vaccination program earlier in December, has vaccinated over 4 million people so far with their first vaccine dose (over 450,000 have had their second dose), and was exceeding 300,000 vaccinations per day toward the end of last week.

Wide range of problems

The EU followed a policy of purchasing coronavirus vaccines as a bloc, but some countries, including Germany, also made their own additional purchasing agreements.

Nonetheless, supply issues have been an issue even at the start of Germany’s vaccination drive, with a lack of available vaccines seen in certain hubs, as well as other difficult logistical issues around vaccinating its priority groups, such as the elderly. This has created patchy vaccine deployment performance from state to state in the country.

Dr. Stefan H.E. Kaufmann, a renowned immunologist and microbiologist in Germany, and founding director of the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin, told CNBC Tuesday that the vaccination process was beset with challenges from the start.

“Number one priority (in the vaccination drive) are currently the elderly and people with severe pre-disposing diseases, notably in nursery homes. This process is ethically fine, but it is very time consuming. It also includes health care workers and medical staff at nursing homes and hospitals. Apparently some of the nursing home staff is hesitant with respect to vaccination,” he noted.

Fenna Martin (C) vaccines Marielotte Kilian (L), 87, and Richard Kilian (R), 86,…