Angela Merkel has received the Moderna vaccine has her second inoculation against COVID-19 having had the AstraZeneca jab as her first dose, the German Chancellor’s office said on Tuesday.
“Yes, we confirm” that Mrs Merkel was recently injected with a second vaccine dose, the mRNA from the American Moderna,” a spokesperson told AFP.
The Chancellor, aged 66, received an injection of the AstraZeneca vaccine on April 16, after its use had been suspended for a time in Germany following revelations of several cases of blood clots in Europe.
The spokesperson then tweeted a photo of Merkel’s vaccine certificate as proof of the injection.
Use of the AstraZeneca vaccine, administered to several German leaders including the president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, is reserved in Germany to people aged over 60.
Several countries, including Germany, have chosen to use injections of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna mRNA vaccines as a second dose, after a first jab using AstraZeneca.
More than half (51.2%) of the German population, some 42.5 million people, have received at least one vaccine dose and 26.3 million (31.6%) are fully vaccinated, according to figures published on Tuesday by the Robert Koch institute.
