PUNE: Wastage of Covid-19 vaccines in the district is currently at 1.7%, which is slightly higher than the state average of 0.5 to 1%.
A June 2 report by the district health office said nearly 27.38 lakh beneficiaries have received their first or second shot of the vaccine and a 1.7% wastage may mean at least 40,000 doses may have been discarded so far.
Separate data on Covishield and Covaxin wastage was not available.
District officials said the current 1.7% wastage is a big improvement from levels in March (9.4%), April (7%) and May (2.5%).
Sanjay Deshmukh, assistant director (medical) Pune circle, said, “The wastage could be attributed to data entry errors by authorities in Pune, Pimpri Chinchwad and rural areas.
We have asked all local officials to reconcile the data they are getting on vaccine usage as soon as possible.
Deshmukh said the data corrections — in supply to hospitals from vaccine storage points — will further reduce wastage numbers.
Ten beneficiaries can be vaccinated with one vial of Covishield and Covaxin.
Once opened, a vial has to be used within the next four hours.
Doses are usually lost when a vaccination site doesn’t have enough beneficiaries present for a session.
Due to low turnouts, many states have reported wastage in the last vials of the day.
State immunization officer D N Patil said Maharashtra has 0.5 to 1% vaccine wastage on average.
Nationwide, there has been a substantial reduction in vaccine wastage — from 10% earlier this year to 5% recently.
The Centre has requested all states and UTs to keep Covid-19 vaccine wastage at under 1% The wastage data comes amid renewed efforts to keep up pace of vaccination coverage in the district.
The PMC said it will now be offering Covaxin on priority to those who’re waiting for a second dose in the 18-44 group.
The vaccine will be available at 16 centres — 60% of shots will be for those booking slots online.
The rest will be for walk-ins.
The PMC will also offer Covishield from 55 centres to beneficiaries up for a second dose in the 45-plus, healthcare and frontline categories.
The PCMC will offer Covaxin to both — 45 plus and 18-44 groups — on priority from 16 centres on Thursday.
Covishield will be offered from 49 centres to the 45-plus category.
On Wednesday, a total of 27,513 beneficiaries were vaccinated against Covid-19.
There were 18,876 vaccinations in PMC limits and another 5,340 in PCMC limits.