Gurgaon: More than 1.4 lakh doses of
Covid vaccine have been wasted across the state since the drive to inoculate
recipients began on January 16. This is around 10% of the 14.5 lakh doses of
Covishield and
Covaxin that have been distributed around
Haryana so far.
Officials have attributed this wastage to the low turnout, especially in rural areas. There are 12 districts in the state that have not been able to inoculate even 4% of their population. Among them is Nuh, where the rate of vaccination is only 1.1% of its population.
Another factor is that central guidelines make it mandatory for every vial to be consumed within four hours of opening it. In areas where the turnout is low, recipients arrive at the vaccine centres hours apart, which means that a vial opened in the morning is rendered useless by the afternoon even if only one dose has been extracted from it.
Data sourced from the health department shows that on an average, 1.2 doses of Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin and 1 dose of Covishield have been wasted for every vial. Officials said the numbers were on the higher side for Covaxin because each of its vials initially contained 20 doses and was unlikely to be consumed fully within four hours of being opened. Covaxin vials now contain 10 doses.
The high rate of wastage has prompted authorities in several states to request their respective governments to expand the ambit of the vaccination drive by increasing the number of centres and bringing more people under it. Neighbouring Ghaziabad, for instance, has requested the UP government for four more private vaccine centres but is yet to hear on this even after three weeks.
In Gurgaon, 23,000 doses have been wasted — the highest among the 22 districts of Haryana. But Gurgaon also received the maximum number of doses (around 2.4 lakh).
Health officials in Gurgaon dubbed it “normal” for 10% of the
vaccine doses getting wasted. “In Gurgaon, 23,004 doses of Covid vaccine have been wasted so far. But this is normal. We expect that around 10% of the doses would be wasted and so send adequate vials to each centre. Earlier, the wastage of Covaxin was more compared to that of Covishiled because the former always came in doses of 20. Now, Covaxin comes in vials of 10 doses,” said Virender Yadav, the chief medical officer of Gurgaon.
Officials are hoping that with the Centre’s announcement that anyone above 45 can be administered the vaccine from April 1, the vials would be consumed fully. “We are hoping to see less wastage of vaccine doses in the coming days as people above 45 can be inoculated from April 1,” an official said. Apart from Gurgaon, neighbouring Faridabad has reported a wastage of 16,263 doses and Ambala 7,258 doses.
Active cases above 1k
Meanwhile, the number of active cases in the city went past 1,000 for the first time in three months. As of Tuesday, the city had 1,088 cases. The last time there were so many active cases was on December 28, when the tally stood at 1,010.
On Tuesday, 188 people tested positive for
Covid-19 in the city, taking the caseload to 61,016. The health department said 73 patients had recovered during the day, bringing the total number of recoveries to 59,567. No one succumbed to the infection on Tuesday. So far, 361 people in the city have died of Covid, of whom 278 had comorbidities.