Mexico City. Of the 243 million 947 thousand 95 vaccines against covid-19 that Mexico has had available to immunize children aged five to 11, adolescents and adults, “five million 41 thousand 50” have expired, representing 2.07 percent of the total of biologics in the country, and which were under the protection of Mexico’s Biological and Reactive Laboratories (Birmex), the Ministry of Health (SSA) reported.
In an analysis of biological products against SARS-CoV-2, the agency indicates that “856 thousand 191 doses, or 0.35% of the total received, were classified as losses in the states, both operational losses and due to accidents. from cold or due to expiration “.
In what qualifies under the concept of “vaccine shortage”, she specifies that these occurred mainly with donated AstraZeneca and Sputnik V antigens of components 1 and 2 purchased from the Mexican government, and points out that these situations did not occur. only in Mexico, but in various countries of the world and that the losses in the country have also been less than in other latitudes.
The decrease of AstraZeneca donated is 3 million 409 thousand 440, this is 1.40 per cent of the total doses of vaccines purchased by the country; of the Sputnik V of the first component bought 909 thousand 810, which represent 0.37 per cent of the total antigens against covid-19 and of the Sputnik V of the component 2 bought 721 thousand 800 doses, of which only 0.30 per cent . Added to this are the state losses, the aforementioned 856 thousand 19.
The secretariat assures that “the measure to inactivate vaccines against covid-19 after expiration has not affected the availability of organic products to meet the demand of the population throughout the country”.
It indicates in detail that the vast majority of doses with expired expiration before their application correspond to vaccines donated by AstraZeneca (68 percent of the total vaccines expired in Birmex) and the rest correspond to Sputnik V. In addition to the general reasons mentioned, in In the case of the Sputnik V vaccines, a further reason that complicated their application was the considerable delay in the specific delivery of component 2 by the manufacturing laboratory, which meant that due to the uncertainty about the completion of the schemes, the start of the primary schemes was delayed with component 1.
Emphasize that these situations are not unique to Mexico. “Countries such as the United States, Spain, Germany and Uruguay have also denounced the expiry of the organic against covid-19, as well as losses for various reasons not attributable to irregular processes. This type of loss is expected in any vaccination process and losses of less than 5% are within expectations.
“For example, in Indonesia, the Ministry of Health confirmed that 40.2 million expired covid-19 vaccines were sent to be destroyed due to the limited time available for their administration and use, as most are donations from countries where it was not possible to apply it. or the cold network was lost.
“The United States destroyed 82.1 million doses between December 2020 and May 2022, which represents about 11% of the doses distributed. The total number of discards is in line with public health estimates for large vaccination campaigns. who use multidose vials, according to the World Health Organization’s vaccine waste rate calculator.
Similarly, the Federal Office of Public Health announced that 620,000 doses of Moderna vaccine against covid-19 stored in health centers had expired, for which the Armed Forces went to collect and destroy them.
In Mexico, the Official Mexican Standard NOM-036-SSA2-2012 for disease prevention and control. The application of vaccines, toxoids, fabotherapics (sera) and immunoglobulins in humans establishes that once the term of use of all biological products has expired, they must be canceled, inactivated and discarded. This tool is applicable to all vaccines without distinction and not only to those used against covid-19.
Of the total number of vaccines received, 223.2 million doses were applied. With this it was possible to vaccinate “70 percent of its population, and reduce the number of hospitalizations and deaths caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which facilitated economic reopening and return to normal activities”.
He details that of the total vaccines received, 79 percent (192.8 million) correspond to bilateral contracts with each of the pharmaceutical companies; nine percent (20.8 million) to donations received from other countries and 12 percent through Covax’s multilateral cooperation.
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