The Ministry of Health (Ssa) admitted this Saturday that five million 041 thousand 050 vaccines, which were under the protection of the Biological and Reactive Laboratories of Mexico (Birmex), had expired.
The federal agency highlighted that the measure to inactivate vaccines against COVID-19 with expired expiration did not impact the availability of the biological to meet the demand of the population throughout the country.
He explained that the vast majority of the doses with expired expiration before their application correspond to vaccines donated from AstraZeneca, 3.4 million, which represents 68 percent of the total expired vaccines in Birmex, and the rest correspond to Sputnik V.
In the case of the Russian vaccines, the Mexican government attributed the expiration to the delay in the delivery of component 2 by the producing laboratory.
In a statement, the Ssa pointed out that in an act of transparency, it reports that, from December 23, 2020 to September 23, 2022, the country has received 243 million 947 thousand 095 vaccines against COVID-19 to immunize boys and girls from five to 11 years old, adolescents and adults, of which, a total of 223.2 million doses have been applied.
He argued that with the doses applied, Mexico has met the objectives of vaccinating 70 percent of its population, and reducing the number of hospitalizations and deaths caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which has facilitated the economic reopening and the return to normal activities.
He specified that of the total vaccines received, 79 percent, that is, 192.8 million, corresponds to bilateral contracts with each of the pharmaceutical companies; 9 percent, 20.8 million, to donations received by other countries, and 12 percent, through the multilateral cooperation of Covax.
The agency added that from December 23, 2020 to September 23, 2022, 223 million 158 thousand 993 doses have been applied against this disease, achieving very broad coverage, especially in the adult population.
The Ministry of Health also showed the concentrate of vaccines applied by pharmaceutical companies, considering primary schemes and reinforcements.
The Ssa argued that like any vaccination program and given the logistical complexity involved in implementing immunization, some biologicals suffer cold network accidents or are wasted during the day, either due to electrical failures, human errors, natural disasters, or fulfill their useful life without being able to be applied to the population due to lack of demand or personal preferences, among other causes.
In addition, the federal Ministry of Health stressed, the vaccination strategy against the SARS-COV-2 virus contemplated the use of vaccines that only have emergency authorization, which implies shortened times of useful life due to limited evidence.
The vaccines that have been received as part of donations from other countries generally have a short shelf life or expiration, further complicating the operation and logistics of the strategy, he said.
“As a result of the foregoing, five million 041 thousand 050 had expiration dates, which represents 2.07 percent of the total biologicals available in the country, and which were under the custody of the Biological and Reactive Laboratories of Mexico (Birmex) SA of CV,” the agency said.
“Additionally, a total of 856 thousand 191 doses (0.35% of the total received) have been classified as losses in the states, either operational losses or due to cold accidents, or due to expiration.”
The Ssa stressed that the vast majority of the doses with expired expiration before their application correspond to vaccines donated from AstraZeneca, that is, 3.4 million, which represents 68 percent of the total expired vaccines in Birmex, and the rest correspond to Sputnik v.
“In addition to the general reasons already mentioned, in the case of the Sputnik V vaccines, an additional reason that complicated their application was the significant delay in the specific delivery of component 2 by the producing laboratory, which implied that before the uncertainty of completing schemes will delay the start of primary vaccination schemes with component 1”, he justified.
The Ssa assured that this situation is not exclusive to Mexico during the vaccination against COVID-19, since countries such as the United States, Spain, Germany and Uruguay have also reported the expiration of the biological against COVID-19, as well as losses for various reasons that are not are attributable to irregular processes.
He warned that this type of losses are expected in any vaccination process and losses of less than 5 percent are within expectations.
He exemplified that in Indonesia, the Ministry of Health confirmed that 40.2 million expired COVID-19 vaccines were sent to be destroyed due to the short time available for administration and use, since most are donations from countries where it could not be applied or was lost the cold network.
Meanwhile, the United States destroyed 82.1 million doses between December 2020 and May 2022, which represents about 11 percent of distributed doses.
“The total number of discards is in line with public health estimates for large vaccination campaigns using multidose vials, according to the World Health Organization’s Vaccine Wastage Rate Calculator,” he said.
The Ssa added that the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health announced that 620,000 doses of Modern vaccine against COVID-19 stored in health centers were expired, so the Armed Forces went to collect and destroy them.
In the case of Mexico, the Mexican Official Standard NOM-036-SSA2-2012 on Disease Prevention and Control. Application of vaccines, toxoids, fabotherapeutics (serums) and immunoglobulins in humans, establishes that once the term of use of all biological products has expired, they must be deregistered, inactivated and discarded.
This instrument is applicable to all vaccines without distinction and not only those used against COVID-19, he added.
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