During the Wednesday, 23 February 2022 Ministry of Public Health weekly Covid-19 press conference, Dr. Eladio Perez, Collective Health director at the Ministry of Public Health, said that more than 354,240 doses of Covid-19 have expired, or around 1.4% of the total. He said most of the vaccines are AstraZeneca that were purchased at US$4 each. The minister estimated the loss at US$1.4 million.
“To date, 354,240 doses have been reported expired, corresponding to a rate or percentage of loss of 1.4, which fills us with satisfaction because the estimate at the time of their order was aimed 10%. Internationally, losses of up to 30% have been reported,” said Dr. Perez.
He said most of the vaccines expire in 2023. To date the government had purchased 26,920,000 doses of vaccine to of the Coronavac/Sinovac, AstraZeneca and Pfizer brands.
The Ministry of Public Health has a surplus of vaccines after signing onerous contracts with vaccine suppliers to secure stocks in 2020. When the vaccines did not arrive in time, the Dominican government contracted with the Chinese vaccine supplier, Sinovac which delivered millions of vaccines to kickstart the vaccination process in the spring of 2020. When the AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines began to be delivered, the demand for vaccines had been mostly met by the Sinovac vaccines.
On Tuesday, 22 February, Vice President Raquel Peña had called out to the people who have not been vaccinated against Covid-19 or those who have not completed the recommended doses to get the jabs. She alerted the vaccines stock could expire, leaving people without the needed vaccines. Vice President Peña said the vaccines are expiring precisely because the population is not getting the needed jabs.
“The vaccines are there, go and get your vaccines so that we are all better covered against Covid-19,” insisted the Vice President when interviewed. She said the government has offered the vaccines to other countries to prevent them from expiring.
As reported in N Digital, the Dominican Republic currently has about 10 million vaccines available.
According to official data, the country has applied a total of 15.1 million doses, while the fully vaccinated population (with two doses) amounts to 5.8 million.
In the Dominican Republic, the record vaccinations for one day was 184,208 on 10 June 2021. For the 22 February 2022 deadline, Our World in Data reports 13,543 first and second dose vaccines were applied. The rolling 7-day average is again declining and as of 22 February 2022 deadline is now at 16,206, down from the previous day.
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N Digital
24 February 2022