MADISON, Wis. – Nearly 2,400 doses of the precious and highly sought-after coronavirus vaccine were wasted or spoiled in Wisconsin by February. The largest single case occurred when an employee intentionally did so, according to information provided by the state health department.
The Wisconsin Department of Health Services provided the data Saturday at the request of The Associated Press. This shows that by February, more than 1.4 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine had been administered and that only 2,349 had been wasted or spoiled. This is a spoilage rate of 0.16%.
The data covers inenters who receive their grant from the state, and must report information on waste or spoilage, the health department said. The first doses were administered in mid-December and according to Sunday, nearly 23% of the state’s population received at least one dose, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Businesses that do not have to report the waste or spoiled vaccine to the state are those that receive vaccine directly from the federal government, such as the Indian Health Service, the Veterans Administration, Department of Corrections and a pharmacy partnership program that has sent doses to certain Walgreens. locations.
However, if the institutions report routine vaccinations without coronavirus to the state, their information could be included in this, the health department said.
Of the total wastage in Wisconsin, about 20% was due to the actions of one former pharmacist who pleaded guilty in February to deliberately spoiling more than 500 doses at Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, a suburb of Milwaukee.
There have been other examples where thousands of doses have been wasted in Tennessee, Florida, Ohio and other states. The reasons range from poor record keeping to accidentally hundreds of shots.
Waste is common in global inoculation campaigns, with millions of doses of flu injections every year. According to one estimate by the World Health Organization, as many as half of the vaccines in previous campaigns worldwide have been discarded because they have been mishandled, unclaimed or expired.
The waste of the COVID-19 vaccine appears to be fairly small, although the U.S. government has not yet released the numbers that provide insight into the extent.
In Wisconsin, the Aurora Medical Center in Grafton reported the highest number of wasted doses at 522. The next highest was Aurora BayCare Medical Center in Green Bay by 191. Only three others wasted or spoiled more than 100 doses, while 119 vaccinated less than 10. .
Government Tony Evers also announced Monday that the Wisconsin Center in Milwaukee is the state’s first federally supported vaccination site. This means that the Federal Emergency Management Agency will take over the operation of the site from this week.
The government has committed an additional 7,000 doses of vaccine per week for the site.
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Milwaukee is home to the state’s largest minority population, which is at higher risk for serious diseases due to COVID-19, but vaccinations have lagged behind the white people and the state average.
“This vaccination center is an important resource for expanding and accelerating the availability of vaccines to communities most in need,” Acting Local FEMA Administrator Kevin Sligh said in a statement.
Judgments of hospitals, hospital systems
Lawyer Aurora Health
“We continue to believe that vaccination is our way out of this pandemic, and are committed to using 100 percent of our available stock each week. Since the isolated incident in Grafton in December, and like many other providers who have experienced early challenges,” “Taking a sixth dose out of Pfizer vials, we’ve significantly improved our efficiency. We’ve also implemented a program to review daily unused doses and ensure guarantees to minimize waste.”
HSHS St. Nicholas Hospital
“The HSHS St. Nicholas Hospital has learned that 28 vials of the COVID-19 Pfizer vaccine were inadvertently left unfrozen on the night of February 8, 2021. After immediate review of the situation, the hospital concluded that these vials were set aside while being sorted vaccine, and due to human error, the 28 vials were accidentally left out rather than put back in the fridge, as is the standard protocol.HSHS St. Nicholas Hospital believes ‘that this situation was the result of human error and not intentional. took this incident very seriously and used it to improve processes and put additional measures in place to ensure that it does not happen again.’
YOUR HEALTH
“UW Health is committed to giving the vaccine to people quickly, fairly and effectively. Of 58,000 doses received, we have already administered more than 90 percent of them with DHS data by February. Only 98 doses have been shown. which does not make it into patients’ arms, mainly due to problems with vials or syringes. “
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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