More than 1.4 million doses of the Pfizer Covid vaccine have been destroyed - or are about to be - because they expired before they could be used this year.
Te Whatu Ora has already disposed of 870,000, with another 570,000 hitting their use by date on Friday.
Its immunisation operations manager Rob Humpreys said some wastage was inevitable in a roll out the size of New Zealand's Covid response.
"New Zealand continues to actively manage its vaccine stocks, striking a balance between ensuring it has sufficient vaccines available to immunise the eligible population, while minimising wastage," says Rob in a statement.
Just 47 per cent of those eligible for the second booster had taken up the chance - meaning about 780,000 people had not.
The first booster was at 73 per cent but because it had wider eligibility, that meant more than a million people had not had one.
The wasted doses were the original Pfizer vaccine but Te Whatu Ora was now offering a new bivalent jab for those getting a booster.
From Saturday, more people will have access to it.
Vaccinologist Helen Petousis-Harris says there are a lot of reasons people may have been slow to get boosted.
For example, some may have only recently had the virus, while others may have been holding out for the new vaccine.
It was important those at higher risk of harm from Covid - like older people - got as much protection as they could, she says.
7 comments
Inventory management.
Posted on 28-03-2023 22:50 | By morepork
No-one can argue it is better to waste some than not have enough, but a million doses wasted in a population of 5 million, does lead to some questions over inventory management. I have worked with designing and enhancing inventory management systems for some major corporations, and if our system led to wastage of 20%, we'd all be out of a job. To be fair, availabilty of supply, probably played a major part with the vaccine, but any commercial enterprise would be looking for alternate sources if something was essential, but in high demand. A JIT inventory system could not manage the vaccine, but demand could have been predicted even using old techniques like exponential smoothing and alpha factors as back in the '60s, which are now superseded by far better algorithms and,more recently, AI. This outcome smacks of incompetence and panic. Never mind, we got through it.
Agree Morepork
Posted on 29-03-2023 09:27 | By Kancho
Seems to be a lot of waste. As to at least we are through it I don't agree . A rolling average 1,605 a week infection Thirty seven died last week so now 2662 people dead and we still continue. With winter and new strains we have merely tired of it. As the vaccine effectiveness reduces over time we actually should be updating vaccines for newer strains at least annually. So where is the plan now?
@morepork
Posted on 29-03-2023 10:39 | By The Professor
Great post by morepork. The other frustrating aspect to all of this, is the fact that there are many in our population who were not eligible for a booster based on their age and race. They could have had these vaccines.
@Kancho
Posted on 29-03-2023 15:29 | By morepork
You are right and I should not have said "we are through it." The figures are still cause for concern and it is much more a case of "We are tired of it." Personally, I still keep a mask in my pocket, and observe personal space and increased hand hygiene. My post was more about the management of vaccines, but I was too loose and premature in saying we are through it.
So only positive
Posted on 29-03-2023 20:20 | By an_alias
So we can only comment if its positive, man what a world you are creating.
@ an_alias
Posted on 30-03-2023 19:41 | By Yadick
Are you positive about that? :-)
it's better in the bin
Posted on 31-03-2023 14:52 | By Mein Fuhrer
than in your body.
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