Bottleneck for Influenza Vaccine Is Expected in Austria
This year the higher demand in Influenza Vaccine is causing a bottleneck and not everyone who wants to get vaccinated will be. As a result of the COVID-19 crisis, Austrians are more aware of the importance of a vaccine.
The significant higher demand in Influenza vaccine leads to a bottleneck. / Picture: © Flickr / Tim Reckmann (CC BY 2.0)
According to surveys, the demand in Influenza vaccine increased tremendously as up to 27% of Austrians want to get vaccinated this year. In the last years the will to vaccinate was significantly low in Austria with only 6% to 8%.
Other countries as Finland, USA and England have a vaccination coverage of 60%.
Due to the Coronavirus crisis more people are aware of the importance of a vaccine and the impact of a missing vaccine, says doctor and vaccine expert Hans Peter Dornbusch. Furthermore, the vaccine is offered for free for children up to 15 years.
The higher demand leads to the problem of a bottleneck of Influenza vaccine. Producers normally orientate their production on the previous demand from the countries. As it used to be very low in Austria, there will not be more doses provided than in previous years.
In total, Austria will receive 1.1 to 1.2 million vaccine doses. About 400,000 doses have already been reserved by the City of Vienna and some are reserved for children especially.
Therefore, there are only up to 500,000 vaccine doses for the rest of Austria. It is not possible anymore to order further vaccine as the time until fall is too short.