Pune: Deputy Chairperson Minister Ajit Pawar said on Saturday that Pune District currently saw a lack of covaxin doses for the age group 15-17, but state data showed that vaccine waste has increased throughout Maharashtra, especially in Pune and Satara.
The waste of net covaxin in the state (until 2 February) was at 1.54%, up from 0.98% in November last year.
Satara District, Pune, Nashik and Gadchiroli contribute to the most for this waste, health department data shows.
Satara recorded a maximum clean waste of 5.72%, followed by Pune 3.59%.
Central guidelines allow 10% waste for covid vaccines.
But it is recommended that the state or region does not approach that level.
Officials connected a lot of covaxin waste with the low number of beneficiaries per session, which has now dropped to 90 (from 98 in November last year).
Mumbai has a vaccine waste level at least: -0.04% for covaxin and -54% for covishield.
An official from the State Ministry of Health said, “Data was a clean waste recorded from the start of the Covid vaccination drive (on January 16 last year) until now (February 2).
Many districts have increased their vaccine savings strategies, including reducing waste.
Also, because Country waste data includes numbers from private hospitals, some of the waste may be on these sites, because they drop the steps of beneficiaries.
“Dr.
Sanjay Deshmukh, assistant director of health services, Pune Region, said Pune had almost 1,100 vaccination centers , higher than some districts.
“This is why waste may be relatively higher in Pune,” he said.
Private hospitals said that with government sites offering free Covid shots, not many appeared in their units for Jab paid.
Dr.
Jitendra Oswal, Deputy Medical Director at Bharati Hospital, said, “We have nearly 3,000 doses that are not used with February expiration dates.
That’s because there are almost no participants for paid shooting on personal sites.
It also leads to waste due to sessions .
Now have fewer beneficiaries; the bottle is open with the remaining doses sometimes have to be discarded if there are not enough people.
“