Pune: A total of 23 districts in Maharashtra report more vaccine waste rather than the country’s average, with Pune emerged between the five worst players, the data of the Ministry of Health recently had revealed.
Pune has shown one of the highest covishield waste (1.67%) with Yavatmal, Raigad, Washim, Nandurbar, and Solapur, another district with a waste of covishield more than 1%.
All of these districts indicate clean waste that is close to 2%.
Mumbai shows the cleanest covishield waste in Maharashtra at -6.77%.
Data shows that the waste of Net Covaxin Maharashtra has increased from 0.72% around 1 November to 0.98% around November 17.
Similarly, covishield clean waste in the country has increased from negative waste -1.09% to -0.89%.
State officials said it was not only lacking injectable needles (AD) which was automatic defects but also the reduction of footsteps had played a role in the current situation.
A senior state health department official told Tii, “before, only 0.5 ml of syringes used for vaccination, while now 1 or 2 or 3ml syringes are being used.
Therefore, the number of vaccines that are slightly higher can not Deliberately extracted from a bottle.
Thus, the number of beneficiaries getting a shot per bottle tends to reduce.
“The official said the vaccination site has been inoculating every beneficiary appearing in the centers, instead of waiting for 10 people anytime.
“Vaccination sites try not to turn the beneficiaries to want additional people to make a total of 10 people per covishield bottle.
There is no waste if 10 people appear at a time per bottle of covishield.
However, when the numbers are lower than 10 after the last bottle Opened, the remaining dose must be discarded, “said the official.
Because the vaccine used does not have a “open vial policy” and must be used in a period of time specified after the vial has been opened, fewer beneficiaries that arise in the session can cause a waste of doses.
However, officials said 10% waste was permitted programmed.
Someone must also take into account human factors in the process of eking out the dose of the bottle.
Therefore, the waste of 5% for a district is not a high percentage, another official said.
Dr.
Sudhakar, Raigad District Health Officer, told TII, “We recently ordered to show the dose of Cowin 10 which was extracted per covishield bottle because the vial basically contained 10 doses.
One extra dose or 11 extracted from the same vial was displayed As an additional dose on Cowin.
Thus, it seems that it has been extracted from another bottle, although it does not happen.
Therefore, maybe, it seems a waste but not in the real sense.
This is a technical problem that is being resolved.
“Experts previously said the Ministry of Health and said The insistence of family welfare in maintaining the waste of vaccines below 1% is not realistic and unwanted.
In its response, the ministry said the fair access to a safe and effective vaccine was very important in ending the Pandemic Covid-19.
The ministry also said the development of vaccines needed a lot of time, and this vaccine demand exceeded inventory many times.
Thus, it is important to monitor and ensure that this valuable tool to overcome the pandemic must be used optimally and wisely.
Therefore, vaccine waste must be reduced and stored to the minimum level which will then help vaccinate many people.