Karnataka, one of the first states to record negative COVID-19 vaccine wastage, is now seeing a wastage of 2.09%. As many as 4,35,828 doses have been wasted from May 1, 2021, till April 8, 2022, according to data from the State Health Department.
Officials said the wastage swelled up following the roll out of Corbevax vaccine for children aged 12-14 years on March 16. Corbevax is a 20-dose vial and most of the time it is not being used up after opening within the prescribed four-hour time limit due to vaccine hesitancy among parents .
Vaccine usage is calculated as the proportion of vaccines administered out of the total vaccines allotted. After COVID-19 vaccination was rolled out in January last year, initially a vaccine wastage of nearly 7% was being reported. However, by July 23, 2021 this turned into ‘negative wastage’ of -2.23% thereby adding a total of 1,75,165 doses to the assigned stock in vaccination centres. State health officials had attributed this to meticulous micro planning of the vaccine sessions and efficient vaccine administration.
However, after the second wave subsided, vaccine wastage again rose and ranged between 0.06% and 0.82% till October last year. Although the wastage again shot up in subsequent months, it remained below 1% till February. Now, again the wastage percentage has crossed 2% and officials attributed this to poor response from parents to get their children vaccinated with Corbevax.
According to data, the net wastage of Covaxin from May 1st till April 8 is 1.58%, which amounted to 3,00,293 doses getting wasted. During the same period, 93,561 doses of Covishield have gone waste that amounted to 0.21%. The net wastage is high at 4.47% (42,004 doses) in Corbevax.
While BBMP recorded the highest Corbevax wastage at 16.53%, Vijayapura, Bagakot, Hassan and Ballari followed with 11.54%, 9.5%, 9.44%, and 8.94% respectively. Two districts - Raichur and Chitradurga made optimum use of Corbevax thereby recording negative wastage of -1.67% and -1.07% respectively. These districts extracted 728 and 313 additional doses respectively from the alloted stock, data revealed.
Optimum use of Covishield
Vaccinators made optimum use of Covishield stocks and negative wastage was recorded in 14 districts. This resulted in extracting 3,57,612 extra doses here. While Udupi record the highest negative wastage at -3.99%, Chikkamagalur, Bagalkot, BBMP, Uttar Kannada and Chamarajnagar followed with -3.22%, -2.55%, -1.86%, -1.47% and -1.3% respectively.
Districts such as Koppal, Ballari, Hassan, Gadag and Ramanagara recorded the highest Covishield wastage at 2.66%, 2.63%, 2.33%, 1.75% and 1.68% respectively.
Covaxin
While Chamarajnagar is the only district that recorded a negative wastage of Covaxin at 0.89% (3,135 extra doses), BBMP, Kolar, Bagalkot, Bengaluru Urban, Vijayapura, Hassan and Ballari recorded a wastage of 4.23%, 3.98%, 3.3%, 2.93%, 2.88%, 2.6% and 2.41% respectively.
Cumulatively (all the three vaccines put together), while BBMP recorded the highest wastage at 6.3%, Vijayapura, Hassan, Ballari and Gadag reported a wastage of 5.3%, 4.8%, 4.7% and 3.8% respectively.
Arundathi Chandrashekar, State Mission Director, National Health Mission, told The Hindu on Monday that the net vaccine wastage shot up to 2.09% mainly because of wastage in Corbevax.
“With Corbevax available only in 20-dose vials, we had instructed the vaccinators to open them only when at least 15-16 children are available to ensure there is little wastage. Once opened, a vaccine vial has to be used within four hours. However, the response was poor due to exams and many parents were unwilling to get their children jabbed. Now that we have started the vaccination drive in schools, the wastage will reduce,” she said.
