Why were 100 million Covishield vaccine doses destroyed in India?
Why were 100 million Covishield vaccine doses destroyed in India?
Vaccine maker Serum Institute of India (SII) had to dump 100 million doses of their COVID-19 vaccine, Covishield, after they expired amid a slump in demand.
SII Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Adar Poonawalla said on Thursday (20 October) that they had halted the production of Covishield vaccine in December 2021 only, Indian Express reported.
“Since December 2021, we stopped the production (of Covishield),” Poonawalla said, as per Scroll.
“We had a stock of a few hundred million doses at that time and of that, 100 million doses have already expired,” he added.
He made the statement at the 23rd three-day annual general meeting of the Developing Countries Vaccine Manufacturers’ Network (DCVMN) in Maharashtra’s Pune.
Why is there a low demand for COVID-19 jabs now? How are vaccines destroyed? Let’s take a closer look.
‘No demand for booster dose’
According to Poonawalla, vaccine lethargy has set in and people are “fed up” with COVID-19, and thus, there is a low demand for booster shots.
He said the 100 million Covishield doses– which have a shelf life of nine months– expired in September this year.
“The booster vaccines have no demand as people now seem fed up with Covid,” Poonawala was quoted as saying by BBC.
“Honestly, I’m also fed up. We all are,” he further said.
As per Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya, 70 per cent of India’s population has been fully vaccinated against coronavirus.
India has so far administered 219.50 crore doses of anti-COVID shots under the nationwide vaccination drive, says the Union Health Ministry data on 21 October.
However, only 29.8 crore booster or precaution doses have been given so far.
The Indian government had permitted boosters for healthcare and frontline workers, and people over 60 years with comorbidities on 10 January this year. The drive was later expanded to all adults in April.
In July, India had launched a 75-day special drive to improve its COVID-19 booster dose coverage where free shots were given to adults. As a result, the coverage had jumped from 8 per cent to 27 per cent.
Experts say one of the reasons for the wastage of COVID-19 shots was the vaccine makers’ misjudgment of the procurement demand by the central government, reports Business Standard.
On a global level, an estimated 1.1 billion COVID-19 vaccines have been wasted as of mid-July, according to data analytics firm Airfinity.
“While wastage at any level is undesirable, it is the result of unprecedented vaccine production which has saved millions of lives. If we want a fast reacting global vaccine response system, we will have to accept some level of wasted doses,” Airfinity CEO, Rasmus Bech, said, as per Business Standard.
How are COVID-19 vaccines destroyed?
A top virologist in India told Moneycontrol that due to immunological substances present in the vaccines, they have to be discarded with utmost safety.
An official of Central Drugs Laboratory (CDL) in Himachal Pradesh’s Kasauli said methods including crushing, autoclaving and chemical treatments can be deployed to destroy vaccines.
According to Moneycontrol, one of India’s leading vaccine makers on condition of anonymity spelled out the process to discard COVID-19 vaccines in the country.
The liquid vaccine solution is put into a kill tank where it is treated with chemicals and heat. This treated solution is then transferred to an effluent treatment plant for removal of chemicals from the water solution to “generate water for further handling”, as per Moneycontrol.
The glass vials of the vaccine are crushed in a crushing machine, said the company.
The dismantled glass, rubber stopper and seals are transferred to an external facility that disposes of them safely, Moneycontrol added.
India stops vaccine procurement
The Health Ministry has decided not to buy COVID-19 vaccines for now and has also foregone Rs 4,237 crore, or nearly 85 per cent of the 2022-23 budget allocation for vaccination purposes, to the Finance Ministry, news agency PTI reported.
Around 1.8 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses are currently present with the central and state governments which are ample enough to last for around six months, official sources told the news agency.
“Any decision on whether to procure COVID-19 vaccine doses through the government channel or get (fresh) budget allocations for the purpose after six months will depend on the coronavirus situation prevailing in the country at that time,” the source added.
In view of the low vaccine demand amid a decline in coronavirus cases, the government took this step.
“Considering this and the vaccines in the stockpile nearing their expiry date, the decision has been taken not to procure any more vaccines for now,” the source told PTI.
With inputs from agencies
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