Mumbai: lack of syringes that disable automatically has “little” push the level of vaccine waste in several districts in the past two months.
Even if the country’s cumulative waste level continues to be under 1%, a handful of districts have reported waste in the range of 3% to 12%.
Prices are higher for covaxin compared to covishield.
According to the last data available, the level of waste of Indian vaccine was 6.3% in June.
The recent number collected by the state government showed that the state waste level for Covaxin was 0.72%, while for negative covishield (-1.09%).
However, at least a dozen districts have a higher waste rate than the country’s average for covaxin.
Among them, Nandurbar touched 12% which surprised this month.
In 14 districts, including Mumbai, Palghar, Ratnagiri, Jalgaon, the Covaxin wastage negative.
Raigad saw the level of covishield waste (2.
7%) and yavatmal (2.6%).
In nine other districts, it remains between 1-2%, while in a dozen districts, waste less than 1%.
Mumbai, Palghar Ratnagiri are several districts that have a negative waste rate (see box) for covishield.
A senior state official said the deficiency in the supply of a 0.5 ml syringe was responsible for increasing the level of waste.
“We have received 1 ml and 2ml syringes in 0.5ml place, which does not allow the same level of precision,” the official said.
Vial Covishield, said the official, usually contains additional doses given to redeem spills or wrong.
“Vaccinators can easily attract eleventh dose and manage too, which does not occur at the same level now,” said the official, adding that the supply of a 0.5 ml syringe has been efficient to a certain extent.
Dr.
Sanjay Deshmukh, Deputy Health Director for Pune Circle, said the lack of syringes was the main reason for jumping at the waste level.
“Vial Covaxin 10ml sometimes has 9.9ml.
Without a 0.5ml syringe, it’s challenging to extract ten doses,” he said.
Another factor for increasing waste, he said, is that the drive has been very decentralized now.
“It was done in several centers and took almost a door-to-door,” he said.