KOLKATA: Vaccinators in Bengal who managed to squeeze out an additional dose or two from Covid vaccine vials are now finding it difficult to do so due to a syringe issue.
The expertise of Bengal’s vaccinators not to waste a single dose but extract more from the vials had led to an additional 16 lakh people being vaccinated in the last three-and-a-half months. In August alone, 7 lakh people could be additionally vaccinated due to negative wastage in Bengal. The state has been topping the country, along with Kerala, in negative wastage of vaccines.
But vaccinators are unable to do so any longer due to poor quality of auto-disable syringe available in market. Syringe shortage, partly driven by the state requiring more syringes to deliver the additional vaccine doses being extracted from the vials, had led to the government procuring syringes from the open market. The Centre provides syringes proportionate to the vaccines.
“Earlier, our vaccinators were able to squeeze out 11 doses easily from most vials and even 12 doses. But now, for past few weeks, vaccinators have not been able to draw more than 10 doses from each vial, at times 11 doses,” said community medicine specialist Sanjib Bandyopadhyay, vaccination coordinator at ID Hospital Beliaghata. “Yes, we are seeing this trend,” said state director of health services Ajay Chakraborty.
The top state health official, however, said it was too early to immediately comment on the reasons. “It might be that the manufacturers are taking care to reduce wastage (by not giving the extra doses). But this is just a hypothetical statement,” he said.
Senior health officials seconded the DHS and said they were also getting such reports from various vaccination sites. But they too said they are not sure about the reason.
Kolkata Municipal Corporation admitted they were unable to take out more from the vaccine ampules due to syringe issue. According to a medical officer at a KMC-run clinic in Tollygunge, a vaccinator now can at best extract 10 doses from a single vial.
While government vaccine centres are encountering the problem, private ones are yet to face it.
