(Video) Rajya Sabha TV (RSTV) The Big Picture: Need to Stop Vaccine Wastage

Topic: Need to Stop Vaccine Wastage

Guest:

Dr. Raman R Gangakhedkar, (Member, National Task Force for Covid-19)
Prof. Y. K. Gupta, (Member, NEGVAC)

Topic Description:

The Centre has flagged concerns over increasing vaccine wastage in many states.At a review meeting to monitor the COVID-19 vaccination drive in states and UTs, the Union Health ministry said on Tuesday that many states such as Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, Jammu and Kashmir and Madhya Pradesh are reporting much higher wastage than the national average, which is 6.3%.

In Jharkhand, vaccine wastage is as high as 37.3%, while in Chhattisgarh, this number is 30.2% - meaning both these states are wasting one out of every three vaccine doses.

In Tamil Nadu, the vaccine wastage percentage is 15.5%, in Jammu and Kashmir it is 10.8%, while in Madhya Pradesh the number stands at 10.7%.

This data comes at a time when the inoculation drive has slowed down or even halted in some parts of the country due to reported shortage of jabs.

So why are these states reporting such high wastage of vaccines? Is there vaccine hesitancy among the population? Or are there other factors involved like weather, the vaccines getting expired, or lack of awareness? And how can this problem be addressed at the earliest – because each wasted dose means a person being denied the vaccine – which is very precious given the crisis we are in.