Red Green Alliance coronavirus spokesperson Peder Hvelplund on Thursday called a decision to sell surplus Covid-19 vaccines “completely distasteful”.

Hvelplund was referring specifically to the decision to sell 200,400 Moderna vaccines to Australia.

The southern hemisphere country requested the vaccines, which were delivered in September as part of an overall purchase of one million vaccine doses from several EU countries.

The Foreign Ministry meanwhile said on Thursday in a statement that it was to donate 250,000 Johnson & Johnson vaccines to Rwanda. But that does not go far enough according to the left wing party, one of three partners that props up the minority government.

“We have to make sure that vaccines reach the places where they’re most needed, not in relation to those who have the most money,” Hvelplund said.

All types of surplus vaccines should be donated via the Covax equity scheme, he urged.

This would be “the best way, from a medical perspective, to fight the pandemic,” the spokesperson said.

In the ministry statement, minister for foreign development Flemming Møller Mortensen said that he was “pleased that we on several occasions have been able to send Danish Covid-19 vaccines to several countries in Africa.”