Why were some doses of the COVID-19 vaccine discarded? The Ministry of Health gave the reasons
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Over 1 million doses of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine have already been delivered to Poland. The Material Reserves Agency provided 456 doses to vaccination points, and 915 people have already been vaccinated. Part of the vaccine doses had to be disposed of. We asked the Ministry of Health what was the reason for this. The answers may surprise you.

  1. The most common reason for the disposal of COVID-19 vaccines is mechanical damage to the vials caused during transport
  2. Part of the doses was destroyed due to incorrect reconstitution. It is also not always possible to get six full doses from one vial
  3. You can find more up-to-date information on the TvoiLokony home page

Disposal of COVID-19 vaccines

From the moment of vaccination against COVID-19 in Poland, the Ministry of Health informs about how many people were vaccinated on a given day. With time, information on the number of doses delivered to Poland, the number of doses transferred to vaccination points, as well as those secured for the second vaccination began to appear.

The indicator showing the number of disposed doses of the vaccine seems to be of particular interest. According to yesterday’s data, 392 doses were disposed of, today this number has risen to 660. We asked the Ministry of Health what the reasons are. Some reasons are a bit surprising.

Vaccine disposal due to mechanical damage

The vast majority of reasons for the disposal of vaccine doses related to mechanical damage to the vials. The reasons were: broken or cracked vials during transport, inadvertent breakage of the ampoule, a fragment of a solid body in the vial.

Some of the doses had to be disposed of due to anomalies in the preparation of the solution for injection – bad dissolution, fluid leakage, high pressure in the ampoule.

See also: How many people in Poland have already been vaccinated against COVID-19?

Doses lost prior to revision of guidelines for number of doses obtained from one vial

Part of the doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been lost due to previous guidelines on the number of doses that can be obtained from one vial of the preparation. The Summary of Product Characteristics for Pfizer vaccine recommended the preparation of five doses of vaccine from one vial. However, practice has shown that you can get six, and sometimes even seven full-fledged doses.

See: Wasted doses of COVID-19 vaccines. This is due to the vaccination procedure

A few days ago, the European Medicines Agency changed these guidelines, but it still happens that only five doses of the preparation can be obtained from one vial. The reasons for the disposal of doses include: no possibility to obtain the sixth dose, too little preparation after preparation, use of longer injection needles.

Several doses have ended up in the bin because the time from preparation of the solution to inoculation has been exceeded.

Disposal due to lack of volunteers

There is also one cause of concern on the list of reasons for disposal – insufficient number of patients to be vaccinated. This reason suggests that in some cases vaccine distribution is not fully organized.

In stage 0, which is currently underway, vaccination is given to people at high risk of infection – incl. employees of nodal hospitals and other institutions performing medical activities, including sanitary and epidemiological stations, nursing homes and municipal social welfare centers, as well as pharmacies, medical devices supply points, students and employees of medical universities.

We hope that the disposal of doses due to insufficient vaccinations will be as little as possible.

The editorial board recommends:

  1. Sequence of vaccinations against COVID-19. Check which group you belong to [EXPLAINED]
  2. How to sign up for the COVID-19 vaccination? [WE EXPLAIN]
  3. What does the COVID-19 vaccination look like? [WE EXPLAIN]

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