The Dutch government has announced that all leftover AstraZeneca doses in the Netherlands are to be donated to Tanzania and Namibia in order to assist with the countries’ vaccination campaigns. 

The Netherlands donates hundreds of thousands of vaccines

745.000 doses of AstraZeneca will be donated to “countries in need” that have appealed to the Dutch government for help with their coronavirus vaccination campaigns. Additional doses that are expected to be delivered to the Netherlands in the future will hopefully go directly to the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access programme (COVAX) to be distributed.

The Netherlands has already donated 150.000 AstraZeneca vaccines to Suriname, Indonesia and Cape Verde, with a further 500.000 doses donated directly to COVAX. By the end of this year, the Netherlands plans to have donated 20 million vaccines to help support the global fight against coronavirus.

Only fifth of the world vaccinated against COVID-19

GPs across the country have already received the doses they require to carry out all the necessary second jabs to those who received their first AstraZeneca jab back in the spring. Any GPs who find themselves with excess doses can report them to the National Institute for Public Health and Environment (RIVM) so that, where possible, they can be redistributed and donated to countries in need. 

The 745.000 doses that are to be donated currently lie in storage in Oss - a city in North Brabant near Den Bosch. According to figures collected by Out World In Data, only 26,5 percent of the global population has been (partially) vaccinated against coronavirus.