Slow investigation of the MP costs Q160 thousand per month to Health for keeping expired vaccines

The Russian biological remains stored at -20 degrees Celsius in four containers that are in the CNB parking lot. The rental of these has a cost of Q40,000 per month, for which the Ministry of Health disburses Q160,000 each month. for maintaining expired product, sum to which electricity expenses must be added. There are also doses of Sputnik V stored in a cold room.

The refrigerated vans have been in the center for five months. Diana Sierra, coordinator of the National Immunization Program, mentioned that A request was made to the MP to authorize the transfer of these vaccines to dry warehouses -without cooling equipment– because they take up space. In addition, this would make it possible to dispense with containers.

“When there is a need to be able to use the vans, the vaccine that we can withdraw is Moderna, and it will automatically be withdrawn because it is in the process of being withdrawn. What we can’t get out of a dry warehouse is Sputnik V, we already have a room with that vaccine and we can’t overload it by passing them over there,” said Sierra.

He pointed out that, for now, the MP has not given authorization to change their location.

The vials of Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines can be transferred to a dry room while the administrative procedure for deregistering them is completed and destroy them.

Also read: Vaccines continue to expire, who will pay for them?

In the opinion of Dr. Zulma Calderón, health defender of the Human Rights Ombudsman (PDH), the slowness in the process of destroying the biological that expired is a reflection of the negligence with which the covid pandemic has been handled. -19 in the country, and unexpectedly, by not having a comprehensive plan of action on the subject of vaccination.

“The Ministry continues to pay the rent for those vans, despite the fact that the vaccines are expired. The destruction will also have a significant cost, which will have to come out of the ministry’s budget, and in the end they are inputs that could be useful to address other issues,” said the PDH defender.

Calmen Salguero, coordinator of the health area of ​​the Foundation for Development (Fundesa), said that the administrative and judicial processes take different times, “surely we will see several months go by, and those vaccines will be stored there,” but they could make internal amendments and attend to the administrative part with less expenses.

“Unfortunately, the culture of efficiency that prioritizes the quality of public spending is not often seen in the Ministry of Health. They take for granted what is there and there will be money to pay whatever it is and whatever it costs”Salguero added.

The function of the CNB is to protect the vaccines to prevent different diseases. It is a transit space, while they are delivered to the Health addresses and areas, but expired vials have been kept there for four months.

ongoing inquiry

In the MP there is an open file linked to vaccines against covid-19 from a complaint on March 6, 2021, and another eight were added, related to anomalies in the contract for the purchase of Sputnik V and the expiration of the biological .

The investigation began in May 2021, and the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor is in chargeand seeks to determine if there are crimes to prosecute.

According to Luis Pantaleón, spokesman for the MP, inspections are currently being carried out in different places where the Sputnik V vaccines are stored, to later carry out the hearing for the advance payment of evidence to count the doses that have expired.

There is no date for when the inspection process will take place.

Also read: Health would charge expired vaccines to personnel who did not apply them, if responsibility is shown, and there is already a case in Sololá

“The Prosecutor’s Office has been carrying out procedures to verify the vaccines that are in the offices of the MSPAS -Ministry of Public Health and Social Assistance-, in order to establish their quantity, if they are expired and a preliminary count,” he said. Pantaleon.

The case is judicialized and the control body is the Fourth Criminal Court of First Instance.

The first doses of Sputnik V expired on February 28, they were 1 million 61 thousand. The following month another 2.7 million expired, and in April the last doses expired, which totaled 873,550.

The purchase has been pointed out as not very transparent. Health authorities paid Q614.5 million in advance to the Russian company Human Vaccine to receive 8 million doses. The total of the biological entered until December 30 last with expiration dates no longer than a couple of months.

Six out of 10 doses of Russian vaccines that Guatemala bought have expired. According to the Covid-19 Situation Board of the Ministry of Health, one million 286 thousand 785 people completed the vaccination scheme with Sputnik V, there would be 285 thousand 698 who did not receive the second injection of this brand. While 165,486 were used as a booster dose.

In the country Only 34 percent of Guatemalans have already completed the basic scheme against the coronavirus -two doses-, and maintains the lowest number of population injected against covid-19 in Central America, according to the Our World in Data report.

There are hundreds of boxes with vials of expired vaccines of different brands that are in the CNB. from AstraZeneca and Modern there are 2.9 million doses which expired in April and May. While of Sputnik V -both components- there are 4.8 million that were spoiled between February and April.

The ministerial agreement 534-2011 establishes that medicines and related products that are expired and in disuse must be withdrawn and destroyed. Vaccines against covid-19 fit into this definition.

Sierra commented that the destruction of the AstraZeneca and Moderna doses depends on the progress of administrative processes within the ministry, whose steps are established to draw up a record stating the reasons why the vaccines were not used during the period of life. Useful. The document must be signed by the personnel appearing in it.

At the end of this procedure, they should be discarded. The Regulation for the Management of Hospital Solid Waste states that expired or unused vaccines are classified as bioinfectious hospital waste, and for their destruction they must be incinerated or be destroyed by any other system authorized by the wallet.

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