1,032 shots of COVID-19 vaccine wasted due to freezer malfunction

theResident @englisc aspyrgend: I 'think' Moderna is the next one on the table here for approval ( still a while off) - but maybe virusrex can correct us on that.

After again, reading UK sourced news - it seems the Russian Vaccine (Sputnik) has an excellent efficacy rate also. Not that we will be seeing that if only for political reasons. Sinovax..doesn't seem great.

I referenced the Oxford vaccine as it doesn't require freezing temperatures so this sort of accident is less likely to happen. I referenced the Chinese vaccine sarcastically!

And yet three is no mention which the freezer maker .

very worried about what the name of company.

And yet three is no mention which the freezer maker .

Must tell us what the name of the company as a press media .

We have to worry to be a wasted vaccines of mount is piling up on and on hereafter furthermore a mandatory.

Their remains disposition is liking into the plastic rubbish troubled, malfunction caused by human error or not must testify fully including the logistics process.

Typical Japan and the unqualified people in charge of things. I wonder how long it will be till they find their scapegoat to blame for all of this.

the last member of the Group of Seven leading industrialised nations to begin its vaccination drive

Or in other words, they've already seen enough countries do their thing, BEFORE making an attempt, and they still mess it up. Maybe they need someone from the US or UK to hold their hand and show them how do to things?

 the freezer maker would start looking into the cause of the malfunction on Tuesday.

Start looking at employee(yer) ignorance and go from there.

"It declined to identify the name of the medical institution or the manufacturer of the freezer in question..."

Why? Gotta protect these guys?

The government is the LAST in the industrialized world to get this going, which means they have had the MOST time -- which they said is one reason -- to ensure things go smoothly and safely. Remember all the drills they held on implementing the vaccine? Was malfunctioning freezer even a thought in their mind when they did them? This was both predictable and preventable, but the government here is incapable of doing things well.

What do you expect?

just pay more money.

Maybe they should speed up the vaccination programme to make sure wasting vaccinations are less likely to happen

Obviously a mistake and mistakes happen, no one is perfect ...ect ect get it...

I guess someone forgot to do trials on the freezers. Turns out the freezers only had an efficacy rate of 30%.

So the vaccine 1) was stored unused for multiple days, and 2) no one was responsible for checking on the inventory or its storage condition over the weekend? Talk about amateur hour. Where's the accountability for such a valuable controlled item? Our shipments of the vaccine arrive in the morning, the recipients are identified in advance and available on short notice, and all doses are administered within 24 hours if not that very same day, precisely in order to prevent incidents like this. The vaccine supply is also under almost constant monitoring and control.

Somehow the commenters will find ways to twist this to blame it on Suga/the government. I am no apologist for these guys, but this is just one of those things. Equipment breaks down sometimes, it is unfortunate, but at this stage it seems an isolated event. Hardly worthy of mention in a national news website...

Well i hope something good comes out of this.

Hopefully the malfunction is an isolated incident and not due to an inherent design defect of the freezer model.

Its probably not a new untested model as news before said freezer companies are just ramping up production

according to the math, the "medical institution" in question is working on the 6 shots per vial methodology then.... so as not to waste 1 shot per, as reported in earlier 'news'.

「(°ヘ°)

How about rewriting the caption to: “0.07% shots of covid-19 vaccines wasted...”? Anyways, I am happy to see these types of news. It means there are low chances of cover-ups in misconduct. In many countries such faults will be simply not reported and wasted vaccines will be administered as good ones.

I'd rather wonder, when were the vaccines put into this freezer, how long was it there and when did they found out it malfunctioned. The time frame between those could be interesting and if it was kept for a longer time period, it may lead to a question - why wasn't the vaccine used?

How can we find out how many people here in Japan

have actually received an unwasted vaccination so far?

Can someone post a link to an easy to read website, please.

So, either those freezers are not monitored for sudden changes in temperature and no-one noticed until Monday or they've just let those vaccines go to waste instead quickly giving them to the first 1,032 people who happened to be around.

Either way, Japan can do better than that.

The usual Japan gov daily vaccine issues/mess, to make the population even more resistant to taking the jab.

Continuing like this... immunity by 2040 in Japan.

Lets just hope not many get the long term covid effects.

Nothing new.

@englisc aspyrgend: I 'think' Moderna is the next one on the table here for approval ( still a while off) - but maybe virusrex can correct us on that.

After again, reading UK sourced news - it seems the Russian Vaccine (Sputnik) has an excellent efficacy rate also. Not that we will be seeing that if only for political reasons. Sinovax..doesn't seem great.

@Ricky Sanchez: Agree - Bizarre situation where we are in a country that a: has approved at least one vaccine, b: has supplies. c: not using it because a few people got hives? Hives. No one has died - or come close to it. Its safe. proven after as little time as feasibly possible to adults and after watching media reports from the UK this morning keeping people out of hospital.

@Burning Bush: Define 'slighly spoiled' please? Or just more of your hysterical conspiracy theories?

If they hurry up and sanction the use of the Oxford/AstraZenica vaccine they wouldn’t have these problems. Or they could always go for the Chinese one!

Good luck maintaining that constantly during the entire supply chain.

There is no need, ultra-low temperatures are only needed for long time storage, once the vaccine is being delivered to the vaccination sites it can be held at usual refrigerator temperatures and then thawed and keep at 4 degrees for the day it is going to be used. "slightly spoiled" is part of the normal use.

The vaccines are untested and so are the freezers...

Vaccines have been tested to satisfaction of the best experts on safety in the world, without any realistic possibility of them being even comparable to the risk the natural infection represents.

Freezers can be bought with insurance, making the manufacturers responsible for malfunctions (and reimburse the cost of what is lost) they are also routinely equipped with long term batteries and remote alarms when they hold valuable materials, any professional institution would never just trust in not having a malfunction but instead plan for at least one mitigating measure, something that obviously did not happen here.

This is the result of someone assuming a responsibility without the capacity of doing it.

Now that it's been approved to store Pfizer vaccine in a normal freezer for two weeks, is it impossible to have them into people's arms before that, in other words, less reliant on these special freezers?

If the vaccine was never unfrozen that would be an option, but the most likely scenario here would be that someone checked the freezer on Monday and found it off, with the contents above freezing temperature for who knows how long, at that point freezing it again would only make it worse.

Nobody can be sure the vaccine is effective like this, so it has to be discarded.

The vaccines are untested and so are the freezers...

Comment of the year!

It’s not a big deal. Just a few. All countries will have some loss. Impossible to get hundreds of millions of shot without loss. That’s why countries order more vaccines than they need.

The Japanese authorities aren’t taking the vaccination process seriously. It’s obvious they don’t trust it because the didnt ( couldn’t) invent it.

expect further screw ups and start considering the possibility you may have to return to your home country to get it.

Well what a tremendous surprise. Even when in last place, the LDP manages to find a way to humiliate Japan even more.

Now that it's been approved to store Pfizer vaccine in a normal freezer for two weeks, is it impossible to have them into people's arms before that, in other words, less reliant on these special freezers?

“*Japan is the last of the G7 nations to begin vaccinations**” -*is the headline elsewhere

All the supposed, leading technological innovations and perceived ‘superiority’ of methods, etc are just a facade to sell stock.

Anticipated waste, spoilage and possible diversion explain the disparity of number of vaccines ordered and doses needed.

It declined to identify the name of the medical institution or the manufacturer of the freezer in question, but said the freezer maker would start looking into the cause of the malfunction on Tuesday.

The vaccines are untested and so are the freezers...

If the Gov't would hurry up and give the Vaccine this wouldn't happen. But instrad they need to take their sweet time just loke everything they do.