Production of the AstraZeneca vaccine in Australia remains high, but use has declined with the greater preference for Pfizer. There are more than seven million vaccines to be used.
Nearly 1000 vaccine providers are destroying vaccine doses from AstraZeneca in Australia because they have after the expiry date. Nearly 32,000 doses are being wasted, despite vaccine production in the country at near record levels.
According to The Guardian, they have already been made available 24 million doses since the beginning of the pandemic, but there are concerns that waste will increase as production continues on a large scale and there are still seven million doses to use and also because Pfizer’s vaccine has been the preferred vaccine in recent times.
Domestic vaccine production allowed 2.5 million doses to be used in July, 4 million in August and 3.9 million in September. However, the use of AstraZeneca has declined — 2 million doses were given in September, down from 3 million given in August.
The AstraZeneca vaccine has a shelf life of six months, which means that any current overproduction does not necessarily have to end up in the trash.
Australia has already donated 3.7 million doses to 12 Pacific countries, but donations have fallen sharply, according to available data: from 500,000 a week during the month of September to 26,500 in the last week.
Despite this, the End Covid For All group recently called on Australia to donate an additional 20 million vaccines to help poorer countries fight covid-19 through the Covax programme, and has also asked the government to invest more. 250 million dollars in that same program.
