2,349 COVID-19 vaccine doses lost in Wisconsin

MADISON, Wis. – Nearly 2,400 doses of the valuable and highly sought after coronavirus vaccine were wasted or spoiled in Wisconsin through February, the largest case occurring when an employee did it on purpose, according to data provided by the department. state health.

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services provided the data on Saturday at the request of the Associated Press. It shows that in February, more than 1.4 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine were administered and only 2,349 were wasted or spoiled. That’s a deterioration rate of 0.16%.

The data covers vaccinators who receive their allowance from the state and are required to report waste or tampering data, the state health department said. The first doses were given in mid-December and by Sunday nearly 23% of the state’s population had received at least one dose, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Entities that are not required to report waste or spoiled vaccines to the state are those that receive the vaccine directly from the federal government, such as the Indian Health Service, Veterans Administration, Department of Corrections, and a pharmaceutical partnership program that sent doses to certain Walgreens. Locations.

However, if these entities report routine coronavirus-free vaccinations to the state, their data may be included, the state’s health department said.

Of the total wasted in Wisconsin, about 20% was due to the action of a former pharmacist who pleaded guilty in February to deliberately spoiling more than 500 doses at Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, a suburb of Milwaukee.

There have been other examples where thousands of doses were wasted in Tennessee, Florida, Ohio, and other states. The reasons vary from keeping poor quality records to accidentally destroying hundreds of blueprints.

Waste is common in global immunization campaigns, with millions of doses of influenza vaccine thrown away each year. According to an estimate by the World Health Organization, up to half of vaccines from previous campaigns around the world were thrown away because they were mismanaged, unclaimed or expired.

The COVID-19 vaccine wastage appears to be quite low, although the U.S. government has yet to release figures to better understand the extent.

In Wisconsin, Aurora Medical Center in Grafton reported the highest number of wasted doses at 522. The second highest was Aurora BayCare Medical Center in Green Bay with 191. Only three others reported more than 100 wasted or spoiled doses, while that 119 vaccinators reported less than ten.

Also on Monday, Governor Tony Evers announced that the Wisconsin center in Milwaukee was the first federally supported vaccination site. This means that the Federal Emergency Management Agency will take over the operation of the site from this week.

The state was committing an additional 7,000 doses of vaccine per week for the site, the Evers office said.

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Milwaukee is home to the state’s largest minority population, which has a higher risk of serious illness from COVID-19, but vaccinations there have lagged behind whites and state averages.

“This immunization center is an important resource for expanding and accelerating the availability of vaccines for communities that need them most,” Kevin Sligh, FEMA Acting Regional Administrator, said in a statement.

Declarations from hospitals, hospital systems

Promote Aurora Health

“We continue to believe that immunization is our way out of this pandemic and we are focused on using 100% of our available supplies each week. Since the isolated incident at Grafton in December and like many other providers who encountered early difficulties in withdrawing a sixth dose of Pfizer Vials, we have significantly improved our efficiency. We have also implemented a program to review unused doses daily and ensure protective measures to minimize waste. “

HSHS Saint-Nicolas Hospital

“HSHS St. Nicholas Hospital has learned that 28 vials of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine were unintentionally left unrefrigerated on the night of February 8, 2021. After an immediate review of the situation, the hospital concluded that these vials had been set aside during sorting. vaccine; and due to human error, the 28 vials were inadvertently left out rather than returned to the refrigerator as the standard protocol. HSHS St. Nicholas Hospital strongly believes that this situation was the result of human error and unintentional. The hospital took this incident very seriously and used it to improve processes and put additional measures in place to ensure it does not happen again. “

UW Health

“UW Health is focused on getting people to get the vaccine quickly, fairly and effectively. Of the 58,000 doses received, we have already administered over 90%, with DHS data in February showing only 98 doses not being delivered to patients, largely due to problems. with vials or syringes. “

Associated Press contributed to this report.