Comptroller's Office will investigate expired COVID-19 vaccines: “12,700 have been lost in Lima”

The Comptroller General of the Republic, Nelson Shack, appeared in Congress on April 11. On that occasion, he reported that 12,700 missed vaccines were recorded in Lima, since they were not applied before their expiry date.

Shack was presented Monday to the Parliament's Special Commission on Emergency Follow-up and COVID-19 Disaster Management, and announced that in May they will begin subsequent checks to identify those responsible for dose expiration.

“In a check on what is happening in Diris Lima, we have detected that vials have been opened for 19,000 doses, but 12,700 have been lost, they are not applied. We are not a country rich enough to be wasting resources,” he warned.

In addition, the comptroller emphasized that despite the concern the entity demonstrated about preventing AstraZeneca's vaccines from expiring, 8,580 doses were detected to expire in the Regional Health Directorates of San Martín, Tacna and Madre de Dios.

“310 expired doses were also found at the Andrés Araujo health facility in Tumbes and there were even nearly 30,000 vaccines to expire in April,” he said.

Faced with this new information, the Comptroller's Office again expressed its concern about the waste of vaccines. Shack pointed out that Peru is not a country rich enough to waste the resources represented by vaccines and asked the current management of the Ministry of Health (Minsa) to review the subject in detail.

“This is something that we are going to investigate in order to be able to collaborate in the evaluation that Minsa will surely make on this issue, since the Comptroller's Office has no legal competence to discuss the issue of shrinkage,” he said.

FORMER MINISTER ACKNOWLEDGED EXPIRATION OF ONLY 8 THOUSAND DOSES

Former Health Minister Hernán Condori had acknowledged the expiration of some doses of the vaccine. However, he only acknowledged that they won 8 thousand 580.

“Peru received 1.6 million doses that expired on February 28. Of that million 600 doses, 8,580 doses have expired, but a million as they say, not that”, he clarified.

“It is false that there are 6 million doses of Sinopharm vaccines to be expired. We have less than 5 and a half million doses that will expire between October 2022 and October 2023,” the minister added at the press conference on March 24, following the Council of Ministers.

Condori had indicated that 2.4 million doses of AstraZeneca arrived on December 22 and 23, 2021, which will expire on March 31. On the other hand, another batches of 3 million doses from the same laboratory arrived on March 1 and 3 and will expire on April 30.

“For almost the entire pandemic, lots with expiration dates close to two months or two and a half months have been received,” he explained.

JUSTIFIES SLOWDOWN IN VACCINATION IN WHICH THE POPULATION IS LESS AFRAID OF THE VIRUS

Likewise, in the face of questions about the slowdown in vaccination on March 22, Condori justified the situation by stating that before it was very easy to vaccinate the population because “there were a large number of deaths, people came and vaccinations were 24 hours and they were queuing.”

“Now since you don't see that... A little bit is also on our side as citizens. As a minister, I am in charge of getting vaccines, 780 thousand doses, I take care of the payment of the staff; but I ask the population to go to the centers of vaccination, let's complete our doses so that tomorrow later we can remove our masks and be hugged all family and friends. Here the struggle belongs to everyone, the authorities and the community”, emphasized the head of Minsa.