Covid-19 vaccine doses going to waste in some of Spain’s regions due to unsuitable syringes

Spanish regions such as Andalusia, Catalonia and Madrid are wasting thousands of doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine by not injecting patients with the sixth dose contained in the vials. Since January 8, when the European Medicines Agency granted authorization, the five initial doses contained in the vials are now officially six, increasing the number of potential recipients.

But this change has not been exploited by a number of Spain’s territories, who are in charge of their own vaccination campaigns. Speaking on Thursday in the regional parliament, Andalusia’s health chief Jesús Aguirre admitted that this was the case. “You could take out up to five doses and there was a wee drop left, and that little bit is used to administer that sixth dose,” he said. “But we are talking about 20% more vaccinations.”

Based on the information offered by Spain’s regions, it is impossible to calculate how much of the vaccine has been wasted. Catalonia, for its part, has admitted it is only using the sixth dose from “two-thirds” of the vials. The region has administered more than 165,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine so far, which would suggest wastage of around 10,000 doses.

A similar situation is playing out in Madrid, which on Thursday announced the purchase of 280,000 syringes in order to take advantage of this sixth dose. This is a low amount, however, compared to the millions of suitable syringes that have been purchased by regions with a much smaller population, such as Murcia and the Balearic and Canary Islands. The Madrid region has stated that in “the majority of cases” it is managing to use the sixth dose, but it has offered little extra information.

Aragón, which purchased 1,870,000 syringes in September, says that it has managed to use “100% of the first five doses from each vial and 81% of the sixth, which is 97% of the total.” Castilla-La Mancha, meanwhile, puts the percentage at 90%, while Asturias, Castilla y León and the Basque Country opted not to provide figures when consulted by EL PAÍS. The rest of the regions, however, stated that the use of the sixth dose is widespread across their territories.