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| A person receives his fourth shot of the COVID-19 vaccine at a local clinic in Seongdong District, Seoul, July 18. Korea Times photo by Bae Woo-han |
Gov't struggles to handle soon-to-expire doses
By Lee Hyo-jin
Nearly 10 million soon-to-expire COVID-19 vaccine doses are likely to be discarded in Korea amid waning demand, in sharp contrast to the early days of the national vaccination campaign when the country grappled with a scarce supply.
According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), as of Monday, there are a total of 14,208,000 stockpiled vaccine doses. They include 8.3 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, 2.7 million doses of Moderna, 1.98 million doses of Johnson & Johnson, 671,000 doses of Novavax and 609,000 doses of the SKYCovione, the country's first domestically developed vaccine by SK Bioscience.
Considering that about 100,000 shots are being administered per week, at the current pace, about 10 million doses are likely to go to waste by the end of this year with their expiration dates approaching. The shelf life of COVID-19 vaccines is usually between six months to a year.
The government has already discarded 5.92 million doses as of July, equivalent to about 3.6 percent of the total 145.8 million doses it had procured.
The KDCA is now in the process of canceling or delaying scheduled shipments. In July, it canceled the shipment of 4 million doses of Johnson & Johnson vaccines, as well as 12.6 million doses that were secured through COVAX facility.
Moreover, the government has been donating surplus vaccines to other countries such as Guatemala, Ghana and Mexico since June, as a part of its effort to minimize the number of wasted doses.
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| Vials containing the COVID-19 vaccines of Moderna, AstraZeneca, Pfizer BioNTech, Johnson & Johnson and Sputnik V vaccines are seen in this photo illustration taken May 2, 2021. Reuters-Yonhap |
However, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the authorities to find recipient nations due to shrinking demand for the original vaccines amid the spread of new Omicron variants. In some cases, the vaccines are not accepted by recipients due to challenges in stocking and distributing the nearly expired doses.
Local experts, who view that vaccine wastage is inevitable to some extent, called for a more efficient inoculation plan for the rollout of the new bivalent vaccines, which is set to kick off in October.
"Throwing away unused vaccines is a waste of national resources. But ultimately, some amount of vaccine wastage is inevitable due to continuous emergence of new variants. So it doesn't seem appropriate to criticize the government harshly," Chon Eun-mi, a respiratory disease specialist at Ewha Womans University Mokdong Hospital, told The Korea Times, Monday.
She also noted that Korea is not the only country facing these issues. The United States discarded over 82 million doses as of May, while Canada and Germany each disposed of 14.8 million and 3.9 million doses, respectively.
But the authorities should now be more prudent in drawing up inoculation plans for the upcoming bivalent vaccines, said Chon.
Starting next month, the government will roll out booster shots specifically targeting the Omicron variant using updated vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna that target both the BA.1 subvariant of Omicron as well as the original strain of the coronavirus.
The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety has also begun reviewing Pfizer's bivalent vaccine that targets the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants and original coronavirus strain, which was approved for use in the U.S. by the Food and Drug Administration last month.
"The vaccination program should now target the vulnerable groups, rather than covering the entire population. Plus, the government shouldn't underestimate vaccine hesitancy among people who have already been infected with the virus," said Chon. "And with that in mind, there should be more detailed plans to monitor and minimize potential vaccine wastage."
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