The World Health Organization warned Tuesday, November 9 of a possible shortage of syringes in 2022 – one to two billion could be missing – if their production does not keep up with that doses of vaccine against Covid-19.
Risk of slowing down vaccination
We point to a real concern: we could have a shortage of syringes, which in turn would lead to serious problems such as slowing vaccination efforts.
, Lisa Hedman, WHO senior adviser on access to medicines and health products, told reporters. The deficit could be from one to two billion
, she asserted.
According to the official, who urged countries to increase their production capacity in this area, efforts in this direction have already been undertaken. But if we can certainly increase the capacity, but we still need to know by how much and when
, she pointed out.
The Covid-19 crisis has boosted the need for syringes
More than 7.25 billion doses of the Covid-19 vaccine have been administered worldwide, according to a tally from theAFP, that is to say nearly double the number of usual vaccinations carried out each year, correspondingly increasing the need for syringes.
According to Lisa Hedman, a lack of syringes could cause a delay in these routine vaccinations and, therefore, have an impact on public health for the coming years
if a generation of young people does not receive the normal childhood vaccines.
It could also result in the inadvisable re-use of syringes and needles, which are supposed to be single-use.
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