Kolkata: Extended Covaxin life helps avert jab waste

KOLKATA: The central drug regulator’s move to extend the shelf life of Covaxin by six months will help city private hospitals avert wastage of several thousand doses of the indigenous Covid vaccine that were set to expire over the next eight weeks.
The vaccine, which finally got an emergency-use approval from WHO last week, had a very slow off-take in recent months leaving hospitals with a huge stockpile they were struggling to use up. The WHO nod will now allow Indians administered the vaccine to travel to countries where it was so far not recognised and is expected to boost demand
The AMRI Hospitals’ entire stock of 4,800 doses were to expire in November while the 500 doses with Peerless Hospitals were set to expire in early-December. The 7,000 doses with Woodlands Hospitals, too, were to expire soon. These apart, numerous other private vaccine centres are left with unused Covaxin vials worth lakhs of rupees.
“We had started discussing how to salvage Covaxin stocks at private CVCs, that were to expire in November. The extension is a relief to us as well as the private centres,” said a health official.
The Bengal government on Monday had around 14 lakh Covaxin doses in its stores while an additional 10 lakh doses arrived on Tuesday. For the past few days, the vaccine was being used only for second doses.
“Since we have got fresh stock, we will start offering first dose of Covaxin to recipients at government-run CVCs. All districts have been informed,” said Ashim Das Malakar, state family welfare officer.
Of the total 8.13 crore doses of Covid vaccines administered across Bengal so far, only a little over 88 lakh have been Covaxin. Other than being not recognized by WHO till last week, the supply of the vaccine, too, has been slow and erratic, the government officials said.
Peerless Hospital is saddled with 500 doses of Covaxin but the daily use has been less than 10 for several months. Often, it has been zero. “Our Covaxin stocks would have expired this month and we were staring at a loss. The DCGI decision will let use up the entire stock since we expect a rise in demand over the next few months. Not only has Covaxin been recognized by WHO, a third booster dose now seems imminent which will see a spike in demand for vaccines again,” said Peerless Hospital CEO Sudipta Mitra.
The AMRI Hospitals are left with 4,800 doses of Covaxin worth Rs 50 lakh. “The extension comes as a relief since we will now be able to use up at least a major portion of the stock. But it could still be difficult to use the entire stock unless the government starts vaccinating under-18 recipients. Covaxin still has very few takers for it is more expensive than Covishield,” said AMRI CEO Rupak Barua.
Some hospitals like Medica Superspecialty and RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences (RTIICS) have already exhausted their Covaxin stocks and have decided not to procure more till the demand increases. “We have a few vials left which should now be used up. But we have no plans to acquire more,” said Medica chairperson Alok Roy.