NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – While millions are still waiting for their turn for the vaccine COVID-19, small, but constant, of the precious doses went to waste across the country.
It is a moving reality that experts have recognized that it would always occur. Thousands of shots were lost in Tennessee, Florida, Ohio and many other states. The reasons range from maintaining poor quality records to accidentally discarding hundreds of photos. However, determining how many lifeboats were thrown remains largely unknown, despite assurance from many local authorities that the number remains low.
Undoubtedly, waste is 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 were mistreated, unclaimed or expired.
In comparison, the wastage of the COVID-19 vaccine appears to be quite small, although the U.S. government has not yet released figures that reveal its extent. Officials have promised that this could change soon, as more data is collected in the states.
Meanwhile, state health agencies are much more inclined to publicize the speed with which they administered the injections, keeping in silence the number of doses that end up in the trash.
The Ohio Department of Health resisted using the term “wasted” when asked by The Associated Press about the total number of doses dropped. Instead, an agency spokesman said the state tracks “unusable” vaccines reported by state providers.
“With 3.2 million doses administered on March 9, 2021, the 3,396 unusable doses reported by state providers represent about 0.1% of doses administered – less than the CDC’s expectation of 5% of unusable doses ”, Alicia Shoults, an Ohio Department of Health spokesperson, said in an email.
According to a record sheet provided by the department, Ohio providers reported almost 60 incidents in which doses were not used. The biggest incident occurred earlier this year, when a pharmacy responsible for distributing the vaccine to nursing homes was unable to document storage temperatures for the remaining vaccines, resulting in 890 doses being wasted.
In Tennessee, missed, damaged or unused doses are not publicly posted on the state’s online COVID-19 vaccine panel. However, after nearly 4,500 doses of Tennessee were ruined in February, the state Department of Health struggled to find answers.
It started with almost 1,000 missed shots in Knox County, in eastern Tennessee, where local emotional leaders told reporters that a shipment was accidentally dropped by an employee who believed the box contained dry ice.
Shortly after, it was reported that just over 2,500 doses were missed in Shelby County – which covers Memphis. A state investigation found that the telltale deterioration occurred in a number of incidents due to substandard pharmaceutical practices, a lack of standard operating procedures for storage and handling, disorganized record keeping and poor management of expiring vaccine doses.
Then 1,000 separate doses were reported damaged in the middle of Tennessee after a school district reported a storage error.
Despite the recent series of missed vaccine incidents, the health agency emphasized that the number represents only a slice of the nearly 1.9 million doses the state has received since December.
“We do not believe there is a systemic problem across the state, but we are stepping up our compliance efforts just to be sure,” 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 eventually hire a separate company to conduct quality checks.
Meanwhile, in Florida, surgeon general Dr. Scott Rivkees recently called for an audit after more than 1,000 doses of the vaccine were damaged last month in Palm Beach County. When asked about the review of that audit, the state said this week that it would provide these documents through a public records request – which it was still compiling.
Like other states, Florida does not regularly publish how many doses do not end up in its arms, but a spokesman for the state health department said 4,435 doses had been missed by Monday.
In Louisiana, health officials provide reporters with updated totals of missed doses at the governor’s weekly COVID-19 briefing. Of the 1.2 million doses of vaccine administered so far, less than 1,500 have been wasted as of Tuesday, said Dr. Joe Kanter, the governor’s top public health advisor.
The Ohio Department of Health reported 2,349 missed or missed doses in February. The authorities point out that the amount wasted is extremely low compared to the total doses that ended up in the guns. However, they note, this does not make the situation any less disturbing.
“Here is the end result: this material is gold,” said Julie Willems Van Dijk, deputy secretary for the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. “I think that every vaccinator who touches a bottle of Pfizer, Moderna or J&J knows this. … I talked to people with these wasted vaccines and they are heartbroken. “
The federal government has also prevented the release of a number of spoiled or unusable doses, although it says that states should report such residues on their vaccine tracker.
“We are working to find out how to provide this data online in the future, when the data is more complete,” said Kristen Nordlund, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in an email.
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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.