Millions of doses of the covid-19 vaccine could be wasted in the United States

As the demand for vaccines against covid-19 falls in many areas of United StatesStates are scrambling to use stored doses before they expire and add to the millions of vaccines that have already gone to waste.

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From some of the states with the fewest people vaccinated, like Indiana and North Dakota, to some of the states with the most vaccinated residents, like New Jersey and Vermont, Public Health departments are looking for providers who can use them.

State health departments told The Associated Press that have tracked millions of doses that were thrown away, including those that expired, were in a multi-dose vial that could not be fully used, or had to end up in the trash for some other reason, such as temperature issues or broken packaging.

Nearly 1.5 million doses in Michigan, 1.45 million in North Carolina, 1 million in Illinois and nearly 725,000 in Washington could not be used.

The percentage of wasted doses in California is only 1.8%, but in a state that has received 84 million doses and administered more than 71 million, that equates to about 1.4 million vaccines.

The problem is not unique to the United States. More than a million Russian-brand Sputnik vaccines expired this week in Guatemala because no one wanted to get vaccinated.

Experts say throwing away doses is inevitable in any vaccination campaign due to the difficulty of aligning supply and demand for a product with a limited shelf life, but the coronavirus has killed nearly 6 million people and wrecked the economies of around the world, so every wasted dose feels like a missed opportunity.

Additionally, many poor nations still have low vaccination rates, including 13 countries in Africa with less than 5% of their population fully vaccinated.