The Government of the Community of Madrid has recognized that it has had to discard 117,977 vaccines between December 27 of last year, when the mass immunization campaign against covid-19 began, and on October 29, 2021. Most of the doses, 106,534 units, were discarded “for having exceeded the deadline for their administration”, as recognized by the General Directorate of Public Health of the Ministry of Health in a request for information through the Transparency Portal. The rest have been discarded “due to breaks or incidents in the cold chain”, says the document that advances the string SER.
The Community of Madrid has thrown away 47,450 units of Janssen for having exceeded the application date, 41,270 of AstraZeneca, 17,070 of Moderna and 744 of Pfizer. On the contrary, the latter is the one that discards the most due to problems with the cold chain, 10,254 units. For this reason, another 919 from AstraZeneca and 270 from Janssen had to be thrown away. With the doses that Madrid has discarded and following the usual pattern ―one puncture by Janssen or double in the case of Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca―, almost 77,000 people could have been immunized, that is, the entire population of a city from Madrid, such as Majadahonda or Valdemoro.
It is the first time that Madrid admits to having had to throw vaccines and it occurs as a result of Catalonia recognized that it had 69,000 doses that had expired in its warehouses in mid-September. The Madrid Ministry of Health then avoided giving the figures for the community. He even hinted that this problem did not exist in the region. “For two weeks we have been taking to the first line of administration those doses that were closer to expiration, so that they are used before the others,” said a spokesman for the department headed by Enrique Ruiz Escudero.
Now, a spokesman, consulted by this newspaper, blames the Ministry of Health for the situation for the changes in criteria when administering the AstraZeneca and Janssen vaccines, a decision that affects all the autonomies. “In the Community of Madrid, vaccines are going to expire because Health has opted for Pfizer and has not allowed vaccinations with AstraZeneca or Janssen to continue, indicating second doses with mRNA vaccines (Pfizer or Moderna) to citizens who received AstraZeneca or Janssen. For this reason, in Madrid around 100,000 doses are going to expire, of which 90% are from Janssen or AstraZeneca, ”says a spokesperson. “Madrid proposed to Health to return them for possible donation, something that the ministry ruled out indicating their destruction as other communities were already doing,” he adds.
For its part, the Ministry of Health emphasizes to the station that “with a margin, no vaccine should be thrown away” and they cite the case of returns made by the Valencian Community. “Madrid communicated the intention to proceed with the return of doses of Janssen on October 27, 2021 at 11:03,” say sources from the department of Carolina Darias. It is the only manufacturer for which there was no tripartite sales and / or donation agreement between Spain, the laboratory and a recipient state. Those same sources point out that the expiration dates were also “immediate” – November 25 at best.
The ministry underlines the importance of deadlines because recipient countries do not accept items with a maturity of less than three months due to the complexity of shipments, distribution and vaccination planning. In these cases, government sources insist, the mechanism for sending vaccines to developing countries is not an option either. This cooperation tool, which is managed by the World Health Organization (WHO), “only accepts doses that come directly from the manufacturer.” Vials that are about to expire cannot be donated because they have already been sent to the Spanish national authorities and they to the autonomous governments.
Vaccines discarded for any reason represent 1.08% of the total dose that Health has delivered to Madrid, calculates the SER. If only those that have expired are taken into account, they are 0.98%. These 100,000 vaccines in the trash are produced in a context of months of repeated complaints from Madrid to the Ministry of Health for lack of doses: “Vaccine that arrives, vaccine that is put”, Escudero repeated like a mantra until May. Around that time, the acceleration of deliveries from the laboratories and Madrid began, in the administrative rhythm queue positions. The Community of Madrid has received a total of 10,825,829 vaccines, of which it has administered 10,113,865.
To the Basque Country, another of the territories that has recognized losses of vaccines for this reason, only 36 units have expired, 0.00098% of those that have been sent, according to data from its Health Department. As for other communities, in Melilla they also admit to the SER that they have had to discard doses, but little more than 2,000. “No vaccine has expired and we are not close to expiring, since now they are requested on demand and they are all available,” explains a source from the Andalusian Regional Government’s Health Department. Navarra, Cantabria and Castilla-La Mancha also deny having thrown doses for this cause. The Valencian Community limits itself to responding that “those that are close to expiring are forwarded to the Ministry.” In total, “240,000 doses have been returned,” explains the Department.
Subscribe here to our daily newsletter about Madrid.
–
