Huge waste of vaccines

HUNDREDS of thousands of doses of Pfizer and AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines have been wasted while millions of frustrated Australians have been unable to get a jab.

The Department of Health estimates between 1 to 2 per cent of doses have gone to waste either because people did not turn up for their appointments or they were administered wrong.

Doses were also wasted after being spoiled in transit.

With 13 million vaccinations delivered as of Thursday this means between 130,000 and 260,000 doses have gone to waste.

It comes as some of the vaccines delivered to Australia early in the pandemic are now approaching their use by date.

The AstraZeneca vaccine has a shelf life of just six months and some of the first doses which were distributed in March were due to expire in late June, others in August and September.

GPs told News Corp in June they had stock approaching use by date they couldn’t shift after an expert government committee stated Pfizer was the preferred vaccine for the under 60 year olds.

Last month in the Northern Territory around 700 AstraZeneca shots sent to Aboriginal health services were due to go unused after Pfizer became the preferred vaccine and the NSW government had used just 145,000 of 800,000 AstraZeneca doses allocated to them for the same reason.

Earlier in the year vaccine doses were wasted because some states did not have the type of low dead space syringe that could accurately extract all six doses from Pfizer vials.

Melbourne GP and former Australian Medical Association president Dr Mukesh Haikerwal said in some cases it was proving impossible for nurses with 30 years experience to extract six doses from the Pfizer vials and this also meant some doses were wasted. However, with the AstraZeneca vaccine many vials had an additional 11th dose, he said.

And he said it was still difficult for GPs to give the under 60s the AstraZeneca vaccine because the government had not yet made good on its promise to introduce an indemnity scheme for doctors who did this.

A spokesman for the Department of Health said each state had the ability to redistribute vaccines they couldn’t use and were doing so “for a multitude of reasons”.

A Sydney nurse revealed this week she was sacked for giving leftover doses of Pfizer vaccine to her daughter and two nephews instead of disposing of them.

The Department of Health said using up the doses in this way was permitted.

“In the event where excess doses remain at the end of a session (that might expire before the next scheduled session) practices have been asked to use strategies to minimise vaccine wastage such as maintaining a waiting list of eligible patients or vaccinate patients or staff who are eligible and present in the practice when excess doses are identified,” the Department said.

Royal Australian College of General Practitioners president Dr Karen Price said: “We have a waiting list of people who are willing to come in for the dose so that we can reallocate and repurpose that vaccine to someone else”.