A coronavirus vaccination summit between Germany’s federal and state governments is due to take place on Friday after the European Medicines Agency (EMA) deemed the AstraZeneca jab safe.
The talks are expected to centre on Germany’s vaccination campaign – which has been widely criticized for its slow pace – and the involvement of general practitioners in the inoculation effort.
The AstraZeneca jab is important in this regard because it does not need to be stored at extremely low temperatures like counterparts from other pharmaceutical companies.
Administration of the AstraZeneca vaccine resumes across Germany on Friday, but authorities have issued a warning for women under the age of 55 that it may be associated with a risk of cerebral blood clots.
Aside from the involvement of GPs, participants in the vaccine summit will also discuss the shortage of vaccine doses that has plagued Germany’s inoculation effort in recent weeks.
In the second quarter, 40.2 million doses of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine are expected to enter circulation. Some 6.4 million doses of the Moderna jab are also expected to arrive during that time.
In addition, delivery of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which only requires a single jab, is expected to begin in the second half of April.
Experts say Germany has entered its third wave of infections, with its caseload – especially cases of the more contagious British coronavirus variant – on the rise again.
The number of new infections per 100,000 residents over the course of seven days rose to 95.6 on Thursday, having stood at 90 the day before, according to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for disease control.
When the metric reaches 100, Germany is expected to return to a hard lockdown.