NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) – As millions continue to wait their turn for the COVID-19 vaccine, steady small amounts of precious doses have been wasted across the country.
It’s a heartbreaking reality that experts acknowledged would probably always happen. Thousands of shots have been lost in Tennessee, Florida, Ohio and many other states. Reasons range from poor record keeping to accidental destruction of hundreds of shots. Still, it is unknown how many of the life-saving roads have been launched, although it is largely unknown despite the safety of many local officials that the number remains low.
Of course, waste is common in global inoculation campaigns, with millions of doses of flu vaccines each year. According to a World Health Organization estimate, up to half of previous vaccines in previous campaigns worldwide have been released. because they have been mishandled, unclaimed, or expired.
In comparison, the waste of the COVID-19 vaccine appears to be very small, although the U.S. government has not yet released figures explaining its extent. Officials have promised it may change soon when more state data will be collected.
Meanwhile, state health agencies are much more inclined to find out how quickly they have administered the vaccines while keeping the mother the number of doses that end up in the trash.
The Ohio Department of Health resisted the use of the term “wasted” when The Associated Press asked him for a total number of doses released. Instead, an agency spokesman said the state monitors “unusable” vaccines reported by state providers.
“With 3.2 million doses administered as of March 9, 2021, the 3,396 unusable doses reported by state providers account for approximately 0.1% of the doses administered, less than the CDC’s expectation of 5% of the unusable doses, ”Alicia Shoults, an Ohio Department of Health spokeswoman, said in an email.
According to a record sheet provided by the department, Ohio suppliers reported nearly 60 incidents in which no doses were used. The biggest incident occurred earlier this year, when a pharmacy responsible for distributing the vaccine to nursing homes was unable to document the storage temperature of leftover vaccines, causing 890 to be wasted. dose.
In Tennessee, wasted, damaged, or unused doses are not publicly posted on the state’s COVID-19 vaccine control panel. However, after nearly 4,500 doses from Tennessee were ruined in February, the State Department of Health struggled to find answers.
It began with nearly 1,000 doses reported missing in Knox County, eastern Tennessee, where emotional local leaders told reporters a shipment was accidentally dropped by an employee who believed the box contained ice. sec.
Shortly afterwards, it was reported that just over 2,500 doses were wasted in Shelby County, which encompasses Memphis. A state investigation concluded that open deterioration was caused by multiple incidents due to insufficient pharmacy practices, lack of standard operating procedures for storage and handling, disorganized record keeping, and poor dose management. vaccine that will expire soon.
It was later reported that 1,000 separate doses were damaged in downtown Tennessee after a school district reported a storage error.
Despite the recent chain of wasted vaccine incidents, the health agency noted that the number represents just a little of the nearly 1.9 million doses the state has received since December.
“We don’t believe there is a systemic problem across the state, but we are stepping up our efforts to meet them just to be safe,” State Health Commissioner Lisa Piercey told reporters earlier this month .
Piercey said Tennessee will soon conduct a review of the state’s vaccine distribution efforts to prevent future waste, and will eventually hire a separate company to do quality checks.
Meanwhile, in Florida, the general surgeon, Dr. Scott Rivkees, recently called for an audit after it was reported that more than 1,000 doses of vaccine were damaged in Palm Beach County last month. When asked to review this audit, the state said this week that it would provide these documents through a public records application, which it was still compiling.
Like other states, Florida does not regularly publish how many doses do not end up in weapons, but a state health department spokesman said 4,435 wasted doses had been reported as of Monday.
In Louisiana, health officials give reporters an updated total of wasted doses at the governor’s weekly COVID-19 meeting. Of the 1.2 million doses of vaccine administered so far, less than 1,500 had been wasted as of Tuesday, Drs. Joe Kanter, the governor’s chief public health adviser.
The Ohio Department of Health reported 2,349 doses wasted or damaged in February. Officials stress that the amount lost is extremely low compared to the total doses that ended up in weapons. However, they point out that this does not make the situation any less disturbing.
“Here’s the summary: these things are golden,” said Julie Willems Van Dijk, deputy secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. “I think all vaccinators who touch a bottle of Pfizer, Moderna or J&J know it. … I have talked to people with this wasted vaccine and they have a broken heart. “
The federal government has also suspended the release of damaged or unusable doses, although it says states should report this waste to their vaccine locator.
“We are working to find out how to provide this data online in the future when the data is more complete,” Kristen Nordlund, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in an email.
___
Associated Press writers Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee, Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, Melinda Deslatte in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Andrew Welsh-Higgins in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.