More than 82 million doses of vaccines against COVID-19 spoiled in the United States from December 2020 through mid-May, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) made available to him NBCnews.
Two retail pharmacy chains, CVS and Walmart, were responsible for more than a quarter of the doses discarded in the North American country in that period, in part due to the large volume of vaccines they handle.
For its part, the state of Oklahoma threw away 28% of the almost 4 million doses it received and Alaska wasted almost 27% of its million doses of vaccines.
Several public health experts told NBCnews that this waste is alarming despite the fact that the total amount that was wasted is in line with the estimates of the World Health Organization.
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“It’s a tremendous loss for the control of the pandemic, especially when you consider the millions of people around the world who have not even been able to receive a first dose,” Sheela Shenoi, an infectious disease expert at the Yale School of Medicine.
There are several reasons why vaccines went bad: some expired in pharmacies before they could be used, others went bad after power outages or freezer problems, and others ended up in the trash at the end of the day when nobody wanted the last few doses in an open vial.
Vaccines against coronavirus They come in multi-dose vials, which means that all doses must be used within hours once the vials are opened.
In addition, the minimum orders for the vaccines are very large quantities, sometimes greater than what the vaccination site needs.
In the United States, fewer than half of fully vaccinated adults have received their first booster shot, according to data from the CDC.
