Nizamabad leads way in reducing Covid vaccine wastage

NIZAMABAD: As part of Telangana government’s efforts to reduce vaccine wastage, the immunisation wing of Nizamabad District Medical and Health Department has been taking special steps to make sure that not even a single vial of vaccine is squandered. According to sources, these measures have yielded good results and the district is now leading the way in the move to bring down vaccine wastage. It may be recalled that in March, 2021, the State had received much flak after studies stated that the vaccine wastage in Telangana was at 17.6 per cent.

Since Covid vaccines are supplied in multi-dose vials, with each vial having 10 doses, it should not only be stored in a particular temperature range, a vial of the vaccine has to be used within a fixed time period after opening it, or else the leftover doses will go wasted. 

In the meantime, vaccine wastage can also be reduced by using specific low dead-space syringes. According to sources, the Nizamabad district administration has been pressing for the use of 0.5 ml lock syringes and this has reportedly helped it bring down the wastage of vaccines. Now, all 42 vaccination centres in the district are using such syringes, which help the medical staff extract 11 doses instead of 10. 

According to sources, the district immunisation wing has till date received 1,75, 820 doses of Covishield and 12,000 doses of Covaxin. As per official figures, the district administration has managed to vaccinate 13,000 persons with the 12,000 doses of Covaxin it received.