Tips to avoid tossed vax
Public health advocates create helpful chart
Public health advocates are coming up with key tips for health agencies to prevent wasted vaccines because of temperature requirements.
The Public Health Foundation has created a COVID-19 vaccine waste chart that dives into the potential causes of why vaccines have to get tossed and how vax providers can deal with those issues.
The publicly available document has been sent to thousands of health agencies, which can add any problems they have experienced during the vax rollout.
“It would be really upsetting obviously to lose vaccines, but it’s more upsetting if we can’t learn from that problem,” said Vanessa Lamers, assistant director of Performance Management and Quality Improvement at the Public Health Foundation, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C.
More than 1,200 vax doses have been wasted in Massachusetts, according to data from the state Department of Public Health. That breaks down to 982 wasted Moderna
doses and 222 wasted Pfizer doses.
Massachusetts vaccine providers have had to toss vax doses after vials were inadvertently refrozen and because of “medication delivery process issues,” vax providers said last week.
The Public Health Foundation’s chart goes over different situations that could cause doses to be thrown out, including frozen doses left over as a clinic is closing for the day.
“If vaccine is thawed and reaching expiration or vials have been opened and there are too few individuals in the target group to be vaccinated, immediately recruit/ seek other potential vaccine recipients,” the chart reads. “This may be necessary as a clinic/pharmacy is closing and has unfrozen vaccine remaining. Develop a call list.”
In New Hampshire, any extra doses — due to additional doses in a vial or appointment cancellations — are administered to people currently eligible for the vaccine.
“When extra doses become available, the state calls individuals who are eligible in Phase 1B, have registered for the vaccine with an appointment further out, and live near the site that has extra doses,” Perry Plummer, who is in charge of vaccine distribution for New Hampshire, said in a statement. “Calls are made until the state can fill the slot.”
Lamers, of the Public Health Foundation, said the Granite State’s plan “sounds perfect.” Having a strategy like that is the most important thing, she said.
“What you don’t want to see happen is exhausted vaccinators at the end of day, saying, ‘Uh oh, we have 22 open doses. What do we do?’ ” Lamers said. “You want to make sure there’s some vetted protocol in place about what to do in that situation.”
If there is excess vaccine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the clinic staff should do “everything possible to avoid wasting the dose.”
‘You want to make sure there’s some vetted protocol in place about what to do’ when there are extra doses. VANESSA LAMERS assistant director of Performance Management and Quality Improvement at the Public Health Foundation