Telangana vaccine wastage just 0.5 per cent

Throughout April and May, wastage remained less than 1%

Hyderabad: For the last few days, there has been a concerted effort from various quarters to spread false information and mislead the public by accusing the State government of a high percentage of Covid vaccines wastage in Telangana. Despite such unverified claims, based on the Covid-19 vaccine distribution status of the Union Health Ministry, Telangana had a vaccine wastage percentage of just 0.5 per cent throughout May.

Vaccine wastage of 0.5 per cent is far more efficient when compared to 10 per cent, which is the minimum ‘programmatic wastage’ that is expected to happen while rolling out any vaccination drive in the entire country.

Based on the statistics of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, New Delhi, for a few days in May, the percentage of vaccine wastage in Telangana was even negative, which means there was zero percentage of vaccine wastage. There are a limited number of States including Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh, which also had negative wastage of Covid vaccines.

Throughout April and May, based on the Covid vaccine status of MoHFW, the wastage of Covid vaccines in Telangana has remained less than one per cent in Telangana. In fact, the percentage of vaccine wastage in Telangana was better than other South Indian States like Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, which hovered between eight per cent and one per cent, respectively.

As of Monday, according to the vaccine bulletin of the State government, Telangana has so far received 67,69,770 Covid vaccination vials of which 66,95,297 Covid vaccine doses have already been administered with a vaccine wastage percentage of 0.1 per cent.

Maintaining a good track record in administering vaccines is not new to the Health Department in Telangana. For the last few years, Telangana has maintained a commendable track record in implementing the Centre’s Mission Indradhanush initiative, which includes administering the entire range of vaccines to infants in government hospitals. In fact, the annual coverage of vaccines under Mission Indradhanush in Telangana is over 95 per cent.

Drawing from the experience of implementing Mission Indradhanush, the State health authorities focused on ways to reduce wastage including making sure vaccines vials are not damaged during transportation, maintaining the exact cold chain for preserving the vaccines, maintaining proper records of the cold chain, and ensuring equipment meant to store vaccines are not damaged. Senior health officials also pointed out that a lot of planning to ensure all the vaccine vials are utilized before their expiry date was also taken up.