A Glimmer Of Hope? West Bengal Shows The Way With Almost Zero Vaccine Wastage: Report

Amid severe vaccine shortage across the country, West Bengal has emerged as an outlier with almost zero vaccine wastage.

Till Sunday (9 May), Bengal had administered about 1.19 crore doses against 1.22 crore doses supplied by the Government of India, reports The Times of India.

“Since our wastage factor is negative due to efficient vaccine administration in the field level, we could save about 3.5 lakh doses. We thus have about 6.5 lakh doses vaccine in stock instead of 3 lakh,” said director of health services Ajay Chakraborty.

“As far as Covishield is concerned, the wastage in Bengal is -4 per cent, meaning for every one lakh doses, we could administer an additional 4,000 doses,” said Ashim Das Malakar, state family welfare officer.

On the other hand, the wastage for Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin in the state stands at around one per cent which the officials said is due to the wastage in the initial days of its roll out.

“The wastage is due to the mixed response in the initial days where many questioned the Covaxin’s efficacy data and we would find only a few takers. But now the wastage does not happen any longer,” said a health official.

Amid a sudden surge in Covid-19 cases along with a surge in demand for vaccines, the vaccine wastage has become a major concern in the country.

Among all the states and union territories, Lakshadweep has the worst record. According to the latest data, Lakshadweep recorded the highest vaccine wastage at 22.7 per cent, followed by Haryana (6.7 per cent), Assam (6.1 per cent), Rajasthan (5.5 per cent) and Punjab (5.1 per cent).