Manitoba bested by Saskatchewan on vaccine wastage

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This article was published 07/05/2021 (1760 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Out of the more than 500,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses given in Manitoba, less than one per cent had to be trashed due to problems with the vial or syringe, or because it was left over at the end of a clinic.

The provincial government said that as of Thursday, 0.68 per cent of 519,507 vaccine doses administered — including at pharmacies, medical clinics and by First Nations partners — have been discarded, or about 3,530 shots.

“Our wastage rate is considerably below the standard (about five per cent) of most vaccination campaigns,” a provincial spokesman said in a statement to the Free Press.

A dose may have to be discarded for a number of reasons, and in general, clinic staff will not draw more doses than are required for the number of people who attend an immunization clinic, the province said.

The goal is to discard no more than five doses at a clinic at the end of each day.

However, over the past week at the RBC Convention Centre mass vaccination clinic, the number of doses discarded each day exceeded the five-dose standard.

Figures provided by the province show that between April 12 and May 3, 118 doses had to be thrown away at the downtown site.

Last Thursday, staff had to dump 43 doses, the greatest number of doses discarded at the clinic last week.

“Due to human error, on Thursday, more doses were wasted at the end of the day than our goal, which is five or less,” the spokesperson said.

On that day, 9,494 doses of vaccine were given to people across the province, including by First Nations partners and by pharmacists and physicians.

“We have reviewed quality assurance processes to help reduce the risk of this happening again. However, this situation is very uncommon,” the spokesperson said.

The province said discarded doses are not just leftovers at the end of a clinic. Rather, a dose has to be thrown away if a syringe is dropped on the ground or if it comes apart prior to use.

Other mistakes, including accidentally discharging a syringe or contaminating the needle, would require the dose to be tossed.

If there is not enough vaccine in a vial to draw six doses, the remaining vaccine in the vial must be thrown away. An entire vial may have to be thrown away if there are issues with the clarity or colour of the vaccine.

By comparison, Saskatchewan, which had administered 443,669 doses as of May 2, had a wastage rate of 0.06 per cent.

James Winkel, of the Saskatchewan Health Authority, said about 249 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been discarded in that province.

“On the occasion when there are unallocated or ‘extra’ doses that cannot be put back into storage, the immunization team will work within the current priority phase to pull forward people who are already booked into the clinic for immunization, essentially moving them forward in the queue,” Winkel said in a statement to the Free Press on Thursday.

“If no one is available the immunization team will proceed to contact other current priority phase individuals who may be on standby and prepared to come directly for immunization.”

Manitoba does not have a standby list for doses that may otherwise be discarded if too many doses are drawn from a vial.

As of Thursday, at least 441,276 Manitobans had received at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine, including 8,923 doses that were given on May 5.

There were 138,153 unused doses of COVID-19 vaccine in the province, including 11,242 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is administered by doctors and pharmacists.

Approximately 27,000 doses were in the possession of the First Nations pandemic response team, which delivers immunizations on reserves.

The remainder — 95,769 doses of Pfizer and Moderna vaccine — will be administered by the province over the next 10 days, the government said.

danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca