Recognizing vaccine wastage in Georgia

Abstract

The COVID-19 vaccination program in the country of Georgia began on March 15, 2021, and reached its peak in the summer of 2021. Throughout the process, individuals had access to over 5.3 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines which were acquired from various sources as reported by the National Center for Disease Control and Public Health (NCDC). Factors such as widespread vaccine hesitancy and low demand led to reduced vaccine uptake, low vaccination rates, and vaccine wastage. As of August 2022, a total of 2,922,000 doses have been administered with less than 35% of the Georgian population, or 1,276,000 people, fully vaccinated with at least two doses. Over 400,000 doses have expired at NCDC's storage facilities due to low demand. Many more doses have been wasted at administration points, and there is a risk of wasting more in the future. The key reasons for wastage are widespread public hesitancy toward the newly developed vaccines, inconsistent policies and communication from government officials, rampant disinformation, and ambiguity from influential bodies in Georgian society. Despite certain limitations, logistics is not among the leading causes of wastage, as Georgia was able to develop a strong cold-chain and vaccine administration infrastructure through years of international cooperation that allowed for efficient management of the COVID-19 vaccination process. Lastly, in addition to establishing a robust reporting system and ensuring transparency of vaccine wastage data, relevant studies based on original data are required to better understand the problem. Conducting studies on health literacy in the country as a baseline for long-term interventions, as well as research that will increasingly evidence-inform further pandemic response are being recommended. K E Y W O R D SGeorgia, hesitancy, policies, Tbilisi, vaccine wastage BACKGROUNDGeorgia is an Eastern European country of 3.7 million, which became a member state of the United Nations in 1992. Since then, the healthcare system of Georgia has become progressively decentralized. Currently, over 90% of healthcare facilities are operated as private "for-profit" institutions. A chronic weakness of this increasingly privatized sector has been primary health care (PHC). This "weakness" became especially apparent with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, as the PHC sector in Georgia endeavored to build support for and confidence in COVID-19 vaccines and distribute them equitably.Large-scale vaccination campaigns, which are often viewed as the principal means of addressing the COVID-19 pandemic, have faced significant global challenges, including in the European region [1]. Georgia, which by September 2022 had reported over 1,720,000 cases and 16,900 deaths attributed to COVID-19, started vaccinations on March 15, 2021. The country's COVID-19 vaccination plan, approved in early 2021, aimed to vaccinate 60% of the adult population, or 1.7 million people by This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution l...

Explaining the challenges of resources management and its underlying factors in COVID-19 era in Iran: a qualitative study

“…It is estimated that more than one billion doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been wasted, 8% of which are vaccines that have remained unused. For example, in Georgia, out of a total of 5,334,060 doses, 408,801 thousand doses of different types of vaccines, such as AstraZeneca, Sinopharm, and Sinvac, were wasted mainly due to public reluctance and low demand for vaccines, as confirmed in the present study [ 33 , 34 ]. In Canada, since the start of COVID-19 vaccination, approximately one million doses of vaccines have been wasted, with 12% of the vaccines being expired [ 35 ], as highlighted by our study.…”