One Million Vaccines Expired Today, Ministry Of Health Reveals The Cause

UNSPLASH ILLUSTRATION

JAKARTA - A total of 1,078,000 COVID-19 vaccines expired today. One million vaccines that expire per day are spread across 29 provinces.

The province with the most vaccines that will expire is Bali with 191,540 doses. Followed by East Nusa Tenggara with 132,588 doses, Lampung with 107,190 doses, DKI Jakarta with 104,238 doses, and Jambi with 67,032 doses.

The number of vaccines that will expire is seen from the data compiled by the Ministry of Health as of March 25.

This was stated by the Directorate General of Disease Prevention and Control of the Ministry of Health (Kemenkes) Maxi Rein Rondonuwu during a hearing (RDP) with Commission IX on Wednesday, March 30.

Maxi said the type of vaccine that expired the most in this March period was AstraZeneca. Then, some are Sinovac and some are Moderna.

"The most (expired) are indeed AstraZeneca, and some are Sinovac. However, it is likely that Sinovac will now run out because this is for children and easy to find targets," said Maxi, seen on the Youtube Commission IX of the DPR RI Channel, Thursday, March 31.

Maxi explained that currently almost all provinces have stocks of vaccines that expire in the period January 2021 to March 2022 with a total of 19.3 million doses. The province with the highest number of expired vaccines was in Central Java, which reached more than 1.1 million doses.

"So almost all provinces have expired vaccines. The most (expired vaccines) is AstraZeneca," said Maxi.

Maxi revealed the cause of many COVID-19 vaccines that expired before being used. Maxi said that almost all vaccines that will expire are gifts or grants from other countries. This grant vaccine, on average, has a fairly short expiration date from its production period.

"Frankly, the grant vaccine has a short lifespan. I think that's what causes our expiry date (Covid-19 vaccine) to increase," said Maxi.

While seeing the majority of expired vaccines are AstraZeneca, Maxi said this was due to public sentiment that the UK-produced vaccine was reluctant to be injected.

"AstraZeneca, I think ladies and gentlemen know, and it's no secret that (AstraZeneca) has been rejected a lot in the area. If we send it to that area, some say not first. Sent to Biofarma, it piles up again at Biofarma, "he said.