BERLIN (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th January, 2021) Germany hopes that production of the BioNTech/Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine will start in the town of Marburg in February, Health Minister Jens Spahn said on Wednesday, after a cabinet meeting on vaccine shortages.
"The German government is making every effort to support BioNTech and other vaccine manufacturers. We discussed this today with relevant ministers and the chancellor. Our goal remains the earliest possible start of production of vaccines, in this case of company BioNTech, in Marburg. If everything goes well, it will happen in February. Then the company will be able to significantly step up the production of vaccines," Spahn told a briefing.
Speaking about the vaccine deficit that led to the closure of a vaccination center in Berlin in late December, the minister noted that the problem is "not a limited volume of orders, but limited production capacity" of manufacturers.
Scarce vaccine supplies have recently prompted EU countries to mull a delay in administering the second dose to provide protection of the first COVID-19 shot to as many people as possible. The United Kingdom and Denmark have already approved such a delay. Der Spiegel magazine reported on Monday that Spahn was also weighing the measure and had asked the national Robert Koch Institute to assess its effectiveness.
