Hong Kong could throw away millions of coronavirus vaccines

Hong Kong authorities have warned that could exclude millions of doses of covid-19 vaccine due to its expiration date is approaching and very few citizens have registered to receive them, given the mistrust of the population.

The former British colony was one of the few territories that could provide sufficient doses to inoculate its population of 7.5 million. However, disinformation in social networks and the rare cases of contagion caused a low level of vaccination.

A member of the government vaccine commission warned on Tuesday that Hong Kong people “only have a three-month window” before the expiration of the first batch of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines. Otherwise, they must be discarded.

“These vaccines have an expiration date”, warned Thomas Tsang, former controller of the Center for the protection of health, on the radio RTHK.“They can no longer be used after this date and the vaccination centers will stop functioning in September,” he added.

Until now, only 19% of the city’s population received a dose of any vaccine, while 14% received both doses. Even among health workers, there are doubts, reasons. Only a third of these professionals have been vaccinated.

Hong Kong has received 3.26 million doses of vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech, but only 1.23 million were injected. He also received around two million doses of Sinovac. However, the latter can be kept for a year without being applied.

The Hong Kong authorities’ warning comes at a time when other parts of the world, especially low-income countries, They are racing against time to get vaccines to fight heavy covid-19 outbreaks.

Six leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean called on the international community for equitable access to vaccines and for rich countries to share their surpluses. Hong Kong would be on this list once the surplus it owned was known.

They subscribed to Alberto Fernández’s request; Andrés Manuel López Obrador, President of Mexico; Luis Alberto Arce Catacora, President of Bolivia; Guillermo Lasso Mendoza, President of Ecuador, and Luis Alberto Lacalle Pou, President of Uruguay.

JFG