32 vaccine doses gone to waste in Central Visayas

CEBU, Philippines —  Up to 32 doses of vaccines were put to waste in Central Visayas this early in the national government’s inoculation program against COVID-19.

Dr. Mary Jean Loreche, chief pathologist and spokesperson of the Department of Health (DOH)-7, said on Monday that eight doses of Sinovac were left unused after the vials that arrived in the region were found to be lacking in volume.

This is reportedly a fault of the manufacturer.

“Remember nga dapat 0.5 ang iyang kadaghanon inig aspirate nimo; mao gyud na ang dapat sakto… We cannot give a vaccine less than the directed or instructed volume. Gikan na daan sa manufacturer nga kulang ang iyang sulod,” Loreche said.

Meanwhile, 24 doses of AstraZeneca were wasted because the recipients did not appear on their scheduled date of vaccination. Each vial of Astrazeneca contains 10 doses.

“So karon, naglista kaning napulo kabuok para sa usa ka vial… wala niabot tanan… Meaning to say, walay nitungha sa schedule,” Loreche said.

The AstraZeneca vaccine has to be administered within five to six hours after it is opened.

Loreche said it is possible to give the vaccine instead to those who may not be in the main list but she gave several scenarios:

“In all likelihood, one facility has a prelisted 10 HCW (health care workers) and then seven nag-show up and there are no other who would agree to be vaccinated, or even if there were, but deferred, so that means the three doses were not used.”

While only a small percentage of the vaccines were wasted, Loreche emphasized the importance of each dose at a time when the whole world is struggling to get inoculated so that people can move on with their lives even with the continuing threat of COVID-19.

Loreche said 72,098 or 54.7 percent of the 131,781 eligible healthcare workers in the Visayas have already received the first dose of the vaccine. Meanwhile, 11,387 others were vaccinated with the second dose as of April 11, 2021.

Private companies

In a related development, an initial 350 private companies in Cebu have already pre-listed their employees in the vaccination program spearheaded by DOH and Project Balik Buhay.

Of this number, 160 are in Cebu City, 118 are in Mandaue City, 22 are in Lapu-Lapu City, 13 are in Minglanilla, eight are in Talisay City, seven are in Consolacion, and 22 are in Cebu Province.

The initial list has 22,609 employees from A1 to A4 subgroup letter C in the priority list. Pre-listing of companies will run until April 30, 2021.

“Kung govenment lang ang saligan for the mass vaccination, basin dili nato maapas ang atong dapat bakunahan and the technique here is we should be able to vaccinate as many as we can and as fast as we can so that we will be able to achieve the herd protection nga atong gi-target,” Loreche said.

PBB is a public-private partnership working upon the request of the Office of the Presidential Assistant for the Visayas, IATF-Visayas and DOH-7 to assist the government’s National Vaccination Program.

The program is free of charge and aside from the vaccines and medical personnel that will be provided by DOH, all operating expenses incurred by the PBB Private Sector Vaccination Centers will be shouldered and donated by the private sector – at no cost to the government or to those availing of the services. — Mitchelle L. Palausabon, JMO (FREEMAN)