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BERLIN, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Germany is considering deploying
the armed forces to give thousands of government officials the
AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, Der Spiegel reported,
after many essential workers refused the British-Swedish shot.
The news weekly reported on Monday that junior health
minister Thomas Steffen had written to Defence Minister Annegret
Kramp-Karrenbauer asking her to make available personnel to
carry out the mass vaccination programme.
The defence ministry declined to comment on the report. The
health ministry did not immediately respond to a request for
comment.
Vaccination efforts in Germany have faced widespread
reluctance to take the AstraZeneca vaccine after clinical trials
showed it to be less effective than an alternative shot from
Pfizer vaccine, developed by Germany's BioNTech
, that accounts for most doses administered so far in
the country.
Health Minister Jens Spahn said on public television that he
would be happy to take the AstraZeneca vaccine, a gesture seen
as an attempt to strengthen public confidence in it.
A programme to vaccinate all government and ministry
officials in "system-relevant" jobs would carry the same
message, and could potentially ensure that vaccine doses
declined by the public do not go to waste.
The latest round of skittishness over the vaccine was
triggered when Germany's medicines agency declined to approve
AstraZeneca's product for use on the over-65s, citing a lack of
trial evidence that it was effective on that age cohort.
To date, Germany has administered around six doses of
vaccine per 100 residents, lagging nations like Britain and the
United States that have rolled out more aggressive campaigns.
The vaccines Germany is administering require two doses.
(Reporting by Thomas Escritt, Sabine Siebold and Joseph Nasr;
Editing by Douglas Busvine and Mark Heinrich)
