Germany: Some Moderna shots may have spoiled

BERLIN (AP) — German authorities in Berlin and the surrounding state of Brandenburg say they’re holding off on using the first batch of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine over concerns it may have spoiled by not being kept cold enough during transport.

Berlin health authorities said Wednesday that the state’s first 2,400 doses of the vaccine arrived as planned on Tuesday but that after initial quality control assessments, there are “doubts as to whether the vaccine was transported and refrigerated properly.” Both the carrier and the manufacturer are being asked for clarification.

Meantime, officials say, planned vaccinations will go ahead using the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

The Brandenburg Health Ministry told the dpa news agency that it was also holding off using its first 2,400 doses of the Moderna vaccine over the same concerns. It was not immediately clear whether the Berlin and Brandenburg deliveries were made by the same truck.

Nearly 65,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine arrived in Germany on Monday and were being kept at a military facility in Quakenbrueck in the west of the country. From there, boxes were being distributed by truck to Germany’s 16 states.

No other problems were immediately reported, and the state of Saxony-Anhalt already started using the Moderna vaccine on Tuesday, dpa reported.