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Since the beginning of the vaccination plan in United States until now, it has been reported that some 15 million doses of Covid vaccines – 19 were discarded for various reasons.
The wasted doses were reported by the states and by the pharmacy chains that administer the vaccines and that had to make a report to the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) which is the federal institution that controls everything related to the Covid virus – 19 in the country.
Although it is probably only a subregister because there are states that need to offer their data . However, with the figures obtained since March 2021 until now, where most were discarded during the summer of June to the month August, the reasons millions of doses were discarded are:
- The expiration date.
- Errors at the time of dilution of the vaccine.
- Problems with cooling, which was not done to the letter.
According to the information given by the NBC network, a bottle contains several doses so once it is opened all doses must be used in the following hours, otherwise it must be discarded. And this is the most repeated case, that of discarding 4 doses at once.
Although to speak of millions it makes it seem that the figure is high, the truth is that it is a minimum fraction compared to the number of doses supplied.
Since December 2020, a little more than 445 millions of doses, and they have been administered effectively 200 million doses, according to CDC data.
Perhaps the figure is alarming because vaccination has had a very uneven distribution throughout the world. Today there are hundreds of countries that have barely managed to vaccinate a minority population in their territory.
That is why NBC talked about a problem of equity, that is why “there are countries that do not have vaccines and there are countries that are rich, they have access to the vaccine and they discard it ”, as stated by the professor of public health of the state of New York, Tim Doran.
In this sense, the World Bank considers it essential that the surplus vaccines that the United States has are sent to the poorest countries in Latin America, region of concern due to the high rates of infections that still exist. This was made known by the president of the World Bank, David Malpas.
In effect, these shipments from the US government have already begun. At the beginning of August it was announced that the United States has already shipped some 200 million doses of vaccines to foreign countries, as part of the 500 million doses of vaccines promised for the poorest countries .