Drugmakers, Health Authorities Discarding Several Million COVID-19 Vaccine Doses: Report

Wall Street Journal reported that governments, drugmakers, and vaccination sites are discarding several unused COVID-19 vaccine doses amid declining demand.
Packaging in multiuse vials containing from five to 20 doses has also been partly responsible for the wastage.
The vials generally must be used within about 12 hours of opening or the remaining doses discarded.
Moderna Inc MRNA recently discarded about 30 million doses. Pharmacies and clinics had to dispose of unused doses from multi-dose vials from Moderna and Pfizer Inc PFE and BioNTech SE BNTX due to the short shelf life.
Related: US Government Calls For Additional Doses Of Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine.
German health officials disposed of about 3.9 million COVID-19 vaccine doses in a federal central warehouse which expired at the end of June.
According to the government health department, Canada has disposed of 1.2 million expired doses of Moderna’s vaccine. It is expected to discard around 13.6 million expired doses of AstraZeneca plc’s AZN shot.
In the U.S., about 90.6 million COVID-19 doses have been wasted, of the more than 760 million doses delivered since late 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Photo by Johaehn from Pixabay

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