Immunisation experts and those actually involved in vaccination efforts say that the health ministry’s insistence on keeping Covid vaccine wastage below 1% is unrealistic and setting such a target is even undesirable.
They point out that excessive pressure to bring down wastage could result in fudging of data, denial of vaccines to beneficiaries or use of vaccine doses beyond four hours after opening it, especially in rural areas where vaccination centres handle small numbers and people travel long distances to get to them.
The average wastage of Covid vaccines in India is 6.3% against the allowable wastage of 10% that the health ministry fixed in January.
At the end of each day, a look at the total doses administered in vaccination centres across India shows that the total doses administered in a day is rarely in multiples of ten.
Thus, if a centre has vaccinated 253 persons in a day, at least seven doses have been wasted as Covid vaccines come in ten-dose vials.
Even in routine immunisation, allowable wastage is fixed at different levels for different vaccines.
“Pentavalent, which has an open vial policy, can be used up to 28 days.
So only 10% wastage is allowable.
Vaccines for measles, rubella and rotavirus once opened have to be used within four hours.
Hence 25% is the allowable wastage.
In the case of BCG vaccine, which comes in avial of 10 doses, only one dose is required for a child and so 50% is the allowable wastage.
But for Covid vaccination being done in a campaign mode and meant for the whole population, the wastage can be brought down to about 5-6%.
The only fool proof way to stop wastage is to have single dose vials, which is not practical.
Multidose vials are cheaper and occupy less cold chain space, but there will be wastage,” explained Dr Anish Sinha of the Indian Institute of Public Health, Gandhinagar.
He added that the allowable wastage could not be the same for vaccine centres in urban areas and in rural or hilly areas.
For instance, wastage could be over 12% or more in a district like Kutch while it can be kept at 2-3% in Ahmedabad.
Retired official, Dr Ajay Khera, who was associated with the national immunisation programme, felt that in the context of vaccination shortage, wastage ought to be brought down to 5% or less.
India currently has about 45,000 centres vaccinating on a given day.
If even two doses were wasted per centre per day on average, that would be 90,000 aday or over 1 crore over a fourmonth period.
With about 22 crore doses administered till May end, that’s close to 5%.
One crore doses wasted may seem like a lot, but this simple calculation shows it isn’t and why aiming for under 1% wastage may be unrealistic.
1% wastage target could be inimical to vax drive: Experts
