On December 14, the first Americans received the Covid-19 vaccine. This is part of the first group of health care workers and caregiver residents in line first. The broader vaccination process will be gradually unleashed next year or so. In the United States, 100 million people may have access to the vaccine by the end of February.Recently, Secretary of Health and Welfare Alex Azar Said CBS.
The global pandemic response has been plagued by a series of shortages of yeast and toilet paper. N95 mask and virus test— And vaccine deployment is no exception. The lack of shot-giving equipment, such as glass vials and equipment to maintain, will probably make it difficult to meet demand. Refrigerate Not to mention the chain Live vaccine material myself.
However, governments and manufacturers appear to be ahead of the curve with syringes, which are one important part of vaccination equipment.
Experts say there are no signs of an imminent shortage of syringes (plastic tubes with pistons attached to needles and used to suck or inject liquid) between existing stocks and book orders. Experts told Quartz about any of the Covid-19 vaccinations or myriad other medical uses of syringes. “You shouldn’t face a shortage of syringes to distribute Phase 1 anywhere in the world,” said Prasant Yadab, a senior fellow studying the global health supply chain at the Center for Global Development. “There is enough manufacturing, stockpiling, or ordering for that.”
However, that can change as vaccination efforts extend beyond priority recipients to the general public. The government needs to start right away and aggressively place more orders to meet demand in the coming months.
The United States is currently only avoiding shortages with early orders.Government whistleblowers in Congress in May U.S. Only 15 million syringes were stockpiledMany large federal contracts have been issued to manufacturers, including orders for more than 280 million syringes from. Becton Dickinson and Co, The world’s top needle producer, and $ 600 million loan To ApiJect, a start-up company that manufactures disposable injection devices.Canada too Bulk order With BD.
Ameshua Darja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Health Security Center, said: “Pre-contracts will actually pay off.
China, India and Brazil should be able to meet the demand for syringes with supply from domestic production facilities, while Latin America, Africa and other developing countries 1 billion syringes The World Health Organization plans to make it available later next year.
However, the total supply of syringes shouldn’t be an issue, but the timing is as follows: If more countries don’t start ordering what they need right now in late 2021, it will be messed up at a wider stage of vaccine deployment. For example, India has not yet signed enough syringe contracts to supply 1.3 billion people, Yadav warned.
“It’s unclear if the pace at which they want to get vaccinated matches the pace at which syringes become available,” he said. “If they were thinking of giving 100 million American-style vaccinations in a month, they would be at stake.”
One of the reasons why syringes are a relatively simple piece of the Covid-19 puzzle is that the world is already producing a huge number of syringes. Production scale-ups are manageable, even if advance planning is required. The world uses about 16 billion disposable syringes each year. According to UNICEF, About 5% of which are for various vaccinations (the rest are used for drug administration, blood sampling and other uses).
Demand for non-vaccine syringes will be below average this year, Yadav said. This is because fewer people are selectively visiting hospitals. But again, timing is important. If orders for large numbers of syringes decline with little prior notice, it may divert supply from the needs of other important syringes, but there is no evidence that this is still happening.
Matt Bernardo, executive director of Housingworks Community Healthcare, said that groups like him who provide safe needle services to intravenous drug users have not yet experienced anything related to the Covid-19 vaccine. , Said he was concerned about the shortage.The bigger concern at this point is New York. Reduce funding for HIV prevention A program that tissues usually rely on to obtain a syringe.
Can used syringes be washed and returned to circulation in case of shortage? Dan Vukelich, president of an industry group representing medical device reprocessing companies, said syringes are rarely recycled because it is cheaper to make new syringes. But there is no legal or technical reason for not being able to collect, sterilize, and replenish as needed, he said.
No matter what happens with the syringe, other equipment must also be lined up to pull out the vaccination drive without delay. Manufacturers of pharmaceutical glass Billions of vaccine vials,and Development of new, stronger types of glass.. The likelihood of vial shortage depends on the number of governments and hospitals choosing Pfizer or Moderna mRNA vaccines worldwide. 5 dose vialCompared to other non-mRNA vaccines that can be packaged in AstraZeneca or high dose vials.
mRNA vaccines also utilize lipid nanoparticles to wrap and protect the chains of genetic material.These had to be produced in the laboratory and were probably due to a shortage of supplies Pfizer announces December 3rd It will offer 50 million fewer vaccines than expected this year.
“If the whole world says’pfizer and moderna’mRNA vaccine’, we are facing a serious deficiency of lipids,” Yadav said.
Hopefully, world leaders will take some positive reinforcements from their previous syringe successes and continue planning ahead of time.
