Rising waste of Covid booster shots

While top health officials are urging people to get yet another coronavirus booster shot, health departments across the world are grappling with a growing dilemma, how to address a declining demand for vaccines, while minimizing the waste of unused millions of doses currently in stockpiles and at risk of expiring.

However, analysists found that millions of those shots have not ended up in arms, largely due to a significant decline in the number of individuals willing to get vaccinated, with many vaccine doses now left unused in refrigerators or discarded in trash cans.

Many countries ordered hundreds of thousands of vaccine doses in bulk in order to ensure they had enough shots to meet demand, but in many cases, the need turned out to not be as high as initially expected.

Although the total number of shots wasted was high, many organizers stressed that the overall percentage of wasted doses was relatively low, in comparison to the number of shots provided to residents.

Officials said they continue to work to minimize wastage by controlling the amount of vaccine that is ordered and shipped, and by redistributing vaccine when possible within the country.