Somewhere in May last year, when the second wave of pandemic was in the full swing, India was struggling to vaccinate its people. The government and vaccine makers were trading charges while Covid-19 was taking a heavy toll on human lives. India, which was home to the world’s largest producer of Covid-19 vaccine, failed to inoculate the entire population during the course of that lethal wave.
But a few months on, by the month of July, India became the only country after China to administer over two billion Covid vaccination doses. The vaccination drive, on scale, was hailed as one of the best in the world. So far, over 98% of adults have received at least one dose of the Covid vaccine, while 90% have been fully vaccinated. Nearly 22.7 million doses are available with states as of October 1.
And just about 15 months later -- by the end of September -- over 100 million doses of vaccines ended up being wasted as their shelf life expired. Were there no takers of these booster doses or they simply didn’t reach the needy? The loss, pegged at Rs 2,250 crore, fades in front of the loss it may have cost to people’s health as the world is still facing acute vaccine inequality.
The shelf life of Covishield is currently nine months, while that of Covaxin is 12 months. The shelf lives of both the vaccines were extended by three months last year. Non-Covid vaccines typically have a shelf life of three years.
Why were 100 million doses wasted?
As the pandemic waned, people became complacent. Masks disappeared from public places and there were few takers for booster doses. Over 84% of India’s population is eligible for booster dose, but only 27% of them have received the shot.
The booster coverage improved, thanks to a 75-day free booster dose campaign by the Centre. In mid-July, the booster dose coverage was at a meagre 8%. Despite the gains, India still has a long way to go in improving booster coverage.
Had it not been the free booster dose campaign, the wastage would have been higher. In an interaction with Business Standard earlier, Adar Poonawalla indicated that he was trying to save around 50-100 million doses of vaccines in a free booster dose drive.
Some amount of vaccine wastage is inevitable with such a large vaccination drive, however, governments try to minimise the damage. For all vaccines, GAVI recommends countries to keep the maximum wastage of 25% for the first year, with gradual reduction to 15% by the third year. For Covid vaccines, GAVI assumed the wastage rate could be 10%.
If we look at the global scenario, the number of Covid-19 vaccines which are likely to have been wasted since the global roll out began is estimated to be 1.1 billion as of mid-July, according to data analytics firm Airfinity.
“While wastage at any level is undesirable, it is the result of unprecedented vaccine production which has saved millions of lives. If we want a fast reacting global vaccine response system, we will have to accept some level of wasted doses,” says Airfinity CEO, Rasmus Bech.
The other major reason why so many doses ended up being wasted in India was because of mis-anticipation of demand. Experts say companies were unclear about the purchase orders from the Centre and ramped up capacity in a big way. Serum had accumulated 250 million doses of formulated vaccines, and another 250 million in the bulk form by December last year and stopped Covishield production. Bharat Biotech too had a stock of 50 million doses lying at its plants around April and had halted production of Covaxin.
The restrictions on exports did not help either. As India grappled with a deadly second wave in April last year, the government halted vaccine exports and resumed only towards the later end of the year. The restrictions meant that vaccine makers might have missed out on some of the export orders. Prof Y K Gupta, member of the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for Covid-19, tells more
Prof Y K Gupta, Former Professor and Head Pharmacology, and Dean, AIIMS Delhi, says the wastage is not cause for panic as over 2 billion doses administered in India. Demand for vaccines against Covid is unpredictable. There is inherent unpredictability in Covid pandemic and wouldn’t call it lack of planning.
Anant Bhan, Researcher, Global health policy, saus companies should have tried to minimise the damage. This is a clear case of supply demand mismatch, he points.
Conclusion: Even though some wastage was inevitable in such a large vaccination drive, the scale could have been minimized through proper planning. But it is easier said than done given the unpredictability of the pandemic.
 "How did India waste over 100 million Covid vaccines?")
