State disposes 1.34 million expired Covid vaccine doses worth ₹26 crore

Maharashtra has over 91.4 million people over 18 years of age eligible for the vaccine, against which 92% of people took the first dose, 85% took the second dose, and the response for the booster dose was very poor at just 20%

Mumbai: Amid the drastic drop in demand to the Covid-19 vaccination, Maharashtra has reported the disposal of 1.34 million doses of Covaxin, Covishield, and Corbevax vaccines as these doses were past their expiry dates, leading to a cumulative loss of around ₹26 crore to the central government exchequer.

The highest number of doses that were disposed of owing to the expiry was 1,08,560 in Sangli, followed by 82,390 in Gadchiroli, 76,000 in Dhule, and 37,647 in Mumbai.

After the central government announced to bear the cost of the Covid-19 vaccines in January 2021, the state government received 122 million doses of Covishield and 28.9 million doses of Covaxin, and 7.4 million doses of Corbevax.

Maharashtra has over 91.4 million people over 18 years of age eligible for the vaccine, against which 92% of people took the first dose, 85% took the second dose, and the response for the booster dose was very poor at just 20%.

As of today, 91.7 million eligible beneficiaries in the state have not taken their booster dose, while 24.7 million have averted the second dose, though 10 million did not bother to even go for the first dose.

The data on the disposal of the expired doses has been obtained by Hindustan Times from the public health department of the state government.

The response to the daily number of inoculations hit a new low with less than 50 doses, leading to the disposal of 3.9 lakh doses in the urban areas of the state, while the disposal of the expired doses of three vaccines in rural areas was 9.44 lakh. The state hospitals and health clinics have a stock of over 15,000 doses of the iNCOVACC vaccine with the expiry date of May and June 2024.

“The central government had procured the vaccines at around ₹200 a dose to supply to all the states. The losses to the central government due to the expiry of the doses in the state are estimated to be ₹26 crore. The doses expired in the last six months of the financial year that ended in March 2023. The supply of the vaccine from the central government was stopped owing to the drop in the response for inoculation,” said an official from the public health department. “A mild wave of the Covid-19 in March-April this year forced the state government to procure 20,000 iNCOVACC vaccine doses at ₹325 a dose. In the absence of the response, most of the stock is lying unused in the hospitals and clinics.”

The highest number of doses that were disposed of owing to the expiry was 1,08,560 in Sangli, followed by 82,390 in Gadchiroli, 76,000 in Dhule, and 37,647 in Mumbai.

Dr Sachin Desai, state vaccination officer, said that the doses were expired owing to the poor response from the people after waves of Covid-19 started receding. “The inoculation has dropped drastically now. The people flying to other countries come for the vaccination with the fear that they may be stopped from entering there for the want of inoculation.”

Dr Avinash Bhondve, former state president of Indian Medical Association, said that the wastage is due to the wrong policy of procurement. “It is because of the inappropriate planning of procurement by the central and state government and because of the state’s failure to create awareness when the pandemic was at its peak. The procurement was done unnecessarily in 2022 when even the third wave was waning. The loss of public money is unfortunate when the budgetary allocation on health services in the state is around 1.25% of the GDP.”