Unused Janssen vaccines going to waste, claim pharmacists
The HSE will soon stop using the Janssen vaccine following extra deliveries of the Pfizer vaccine, which is the preferred option for younger people.
Pharmacists working in mass vaccination centres have claimed unused Janssen vaccines are going to waste.
The HSE will soon stop using this vaccine following extra deliveries of the Pfizer vaccine, which is the preferred option for younger people.
However, pharmacists said they were horrified at advice to remove Janssen vaccines from fridges instead of finding a way to use them elsewhere.
A group of 15 pharmacists working at some of the 42 centres which have not used up their supplies of Janssen have now written to senior HSE officials protesting at what they say is a shocking waste of “valuable vaccines”.
The letter, seen by the , said: “Thousands of doses of Janssen vaccines have already gone or are about to go out of date, despite repeated requests for us at MVCs (mass vaccination centres) to distribute them to community pharmacies.
"It is very disheartening now that the national policy is to simply stop using some Covid-19 vaccines and waste them."
A pharmacist who signed the letter said one Dublin centre has 500 vials of Janssen vaccine containing 2,500 doses at five doses per vial and that a smaller rural centre has 17 vials or 85 doses.
Another signatory said: “It is horrifying. In my centre, we had 600 doses; that is 600 people.”
However, a HSE spokesman said: "It is not anticipated that there will be significant quantities of vaccine that will be unused.”
He said the centres are still using Janssen so the number of unused vaccines is not collated centrally. Asked how many Janssen vaccines remain unused, he estimated: "There will be a relatively small number remaining in the community vaccination centres."
He did not respond directly to the claim that thousands of vaccines are potentially going to waste.
Later, a senior HSE spokeswoman said: “There will be an inventory taken of stock in vaccination centres over the coming days.”
A Department of Health spokeswoman said it is "considering the requirements for any booster programme and the options for how any surplus vaccine thereafter could be redistributed”.
On August 11, the HSE confirmed that use of Janssen and AstraZeneca vaccines would soon cease, in a document signed by Lucy Jessop, a director at the National Immunisation Office, and seen by the .
She advised staff that “any residual vaccines which are not needed to complete cohorts should be returned to the national cold chain service". The document continued: "These vaccines can be removed from the fridge and prepared for return." It said they should be stored in a secure location.
The 15 pharmacists and others who contacted the said they were shocked with the instruction as they said this means the vaccines could soon become unusable. It is understood, in most centres, pharmacists decided not to remove vaccines from the fridges.
Most Janssen vaccines will expire by the end of August, but many have already passed their limit, they said. However, they said the AstraZeneca vaccines are valid until the end of October.
Two pharmacists who signed the letter said suggestions to the HSE that vaccines go to nearby pharmacies in cool boxes or that pharmacists send customers to centres were rejected.
