5,000 doses wasted in five states so far: Data
NEW DELHI: Close to 5,000 doses of coronavirus vaccines have been wasted in some states since the vaccination drive began on January 16, data from five states suggests, with at least one – Tripura – reporting the losses to be more than the 10% threshold that the government has identified as possibly unavoidable due to the scale of the drive.
The wastages have largely been due to vaccinators not finding enough recipients after opening vials, which need to be used up within four hours. The problem is particularly hard to avoid since the two vaccines approved in India for use come in vials of 10 or 20 doses.
“So far, 1,623 or 11% of the total vaccine doses were wasted as many beneficiaries were not available during vaccination and droplets fall while shifting it to syringes. Another thing is that we need to use one vial within four hours after which it is of no use,” said Dr Kallol Roy, Tripura’s immunisation officer.
Authorities addressed the problem of wastage to some degree by allowing vaccinators to call in people who were not scheduled to get doses on a particular day, helping increase turnout to compensate for hesitancy. But, since January 16, only about 55 people have turned up for every 100 selected and invited for a dose during every session.
On Thursday, this number was – on an average – 49 out of every 100 in the close 500,000 vaccinations that took place.
“When we started the Covid-19 vaccination programme, we had factored in a 10% wastage across the country. We have issued very detailed guidelines to the states and UTS about how to avoid wastage of vaccines. We have made our digital platform more flexible and we have permitted that apart from the scheduled hundred people, the person who is handling the vaccination session at a particular site can add additional people as long as they are part of the database,” said Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan while responding to a question on how much wastage was occurring, during the government’s Covid-19 briefing Thursday. He did not give a number for the losses but said the data will be shared once the ministry analyses it.
In Punjab, this number was 1,200 doses, as per the state’s nodal officer for Covid-19, Dr Rajesh Bhaskar. He said the overall number was well below the permissible limit of 10%. “As one vial of the Covishield contains 10 doses, vaccinators have been asked try to give shots of vaccine when there are ten receivers together,” he said. The state conducts vaccination four days a week and no shots were given on Wednesday.
Health officials in Bihar too said the wastage was with within the 10% limit till now. However, wastage of Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin was more because of its larger vial size as compared to Serum Institute’s Covishield, an official said.
In the Patna’s Nalanda Medical College Hospital (NMCH), where the wastage was as high as 25% last week, fewer doses are now being lost. “In case of Covaxin, it is difficult to mobilise 20 health care workers at a time, given that hospital functioning should not be interrupted,” said Dr Binod Kumar Singh, superintendent of the Nalanda Medical College Hospital (NMCH) in Patna. Covshield was being administered at 295 of the total 301 session sites in Bihar.
Dr Kuldeep Singh Martoliya, Uttarakhand’s immunization officer, said 4.1% doses of close to 14,500 got wasted. “We have issued instructions to minimise wastage,” he said.
Of the 194,048 vaccines given till January 28, Odisha lost 0.58% — or 1,125 doses, said director of family welfate, DR BK Panigrahy.
Health officials in Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala and Chhattisgarh said there was no wastage.
(With inputs from state bureaus)
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