Pharmacists forced to bin COVID-19 vaccines
Once opened, the multi-dose vial of the Moderna vaccine must be discarded after six hours
Pharmacists say they’re throwing away COVID-19 vaccines because they cannot find adequate demand to finish each multi-dose vial.
Patients aged 12 and up are now able to access Moderna’s mRNA vaccine through pharmacies under the most recent expansion of the national rollout.
But under ATAGI’s guidelines, pharmacists have six hours to use the 10 doses within a vial from when the first dose is drawn up.
Ben Ng, a pharmacist in Albany, WA, says the rule is creating unnecessary waste, estimating he is discarding more than half of the doses because of a lack of patients.
