MADISON, Wis. – Nearly 2,400 doses of the precious and highly sought-after coronavirus vaccine were wasted or spoiled in Wisconsin until February, with the biggest case occurring when an employee did it on purpose, data show by the state health department.
The Wisconsin Department of Health Services provided the data on Saturday at the request of The Associated Press. This shows that, until February, there were more than 1.4 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine administered and only 2,349 were wasted or spoiled. This is a 0.16% deterioration rate.
The data covers vaccinators who receive their allocation from the state and are required to report data on waste or deterioration, the state health department said. The first doses were administered in mid-December and, by Sunday, almost 23% of the state’s population had received at least one dose, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The entities that are not obliged to report spoiled waste or vaccines to the state are those that receive the vaccine directly from the federal government, such as the Indigenous Health Service, the Veterans Administration, the Corrections Department and a pharmacy partnership program that sent doses for certain Walgreens locations.
However, if these entities report routine coronavirus-free vaccinations to the state, their data may be included, the state health department said.
Of the total wasted in Wisconsin, about 20% was due to the action of a former pharmacist who pleaded guilty in February to purposely spoiling more than 500 doses at Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, a suburb of Milwaukee.
There have been other examples where thousands of doses have been missed in Tennessee, Florida, Ohio and other states. The reasons range from maintaining poor quality records to accidentally discarding hundreds of photos.
Residues are common in global inoculation campaigns, with millions of doses of flu vaccines destroyed each year. According to an estimate by the World Health Organization, up to half of vaccines in previous campaigns around the world have been thrown away because they have been mishandled, unclaimed or expired.
The wastage of the COVID-19 vaccine appears to be very small, although the United States government has not yet released figures that reveal its extent.
In Wisconsin, Aurora Medical Center in Grafton reported the largest number of missed doses in 522. The next largest was Aurora BayCare Medical Center in Green Bay with 191. Only three others reported more than 100 missed or damaged doses, while 119 vaccinators reported less than 10
Also on Monday, Governor Tony Evers announced that the Wisconsin Center in Milwaukee was the state’s first federally supported vaccination site. This means that the Federal Emergency Management Agency will take over the operation of the site starting this week.
The state was committing an additional 7,000 doses of vaccine per week to the site, Evers’ office said.
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Milwaukee is home to the largest minority of the state’s population, who are at greater risk of contracting serious illnesses due to COVID-19, but vaccinations have declined there compared to whites and state averages.
“This vaccination center is an important resource to expand and streamline the availability of the vaccine to the communities that need it most,” said acting FEMA regional administrator Kevin Sligh in a statement.
Hospital statements, hospital systems
Aurora Health Attorney
“We continue to believe that vaccination is our way out of this pandemic and we are focused on using 100 percent of our available supplies every week. Since the isolated incident in Grafton in December and like many other providers who had initial problems extracting a sixth dose of Pfizer Bottles, we have significantly improved our efficiency. We have also implemented a program to review unused doses daily and ensure safeguards to minimize waste. “
HSHS Hospital of São Nicolau
“The HSHS Hospital of São Nicolau learned that 28 vials of the COVID-19 Pfizer vaccine were left unintentionally refrigerated on the night of 8 February 2021. After an immediate review of the situation, the hospital concluded that these vials were set aside during the vaccine classification, and as a result of human error, the 28 vials were inadvertently left out instead of being put back in the refrigerator as is the standard protocol HSHS St. Nicholas Hospital firmly believes that this situation was the result of human error and not The hospital took this incident very seriously and used it to improve processes and implement additional measures to ensure that it does not happen again. “
UW Health
“UW Health is focused on giving people the vaccine quickly, equitably and effectively. From 58,000 doses received, we have already administered more than 90 percent of them with DHS data by February, showing only 98 doses that did not reach the arms of the mainly due to problems with vials or syringes. “
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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