Austria’s Health Ministry confirmed the new coronavirus vaccines adapted to omicron variants are on their way to the country and should be ready to be administered by the end of next week.

The vaccines are expected to arrive in the country by September 9th and should then be distributed to vaccination centres across the federal states. The new option is a so-called bivalent vaccine, in other words, a vaccine that works by stimulating an immune response against two different variants.

In this case the Wuhan variant and the BA.1 variant. They should increase neutralising antibodies by a factor of 1.5.
With the first delivery, about 750,000 vaccine doses of the Biontech/Pfizer vaccine and about 290,000 doses of the adapted Moderna vaccine will reach Austria. They should be used as booster vaccinations or a fourth shot. The original ones will still be used to complete basic immunisation (in Austria, that means three doses).

Government looking to ‘pass on’ unused vaccines

There is no risk of vaccine shortages in the European Union, Austria’s Health Minister Johannes Rauch (Greens) said.

On the contrary: “Everyone currently has too many vaccines”, the minister added.
Austria currently has about 17 million doses in stock, and there are 6.8 million partially vaccinated people. The minister wants to make it easier to “pass on” vaccines that are not needed, he said.