A survey of data from 10 US states shows that more than one million doses have gone to waste since the nation began administering Covid-19 vaccines in December.

Much of the loss has come as demand for inoculations plummeted, with the daily rate of vaccinations now at less than one-fifth of its peak average of 3.4 million shots, reached in mid-April.

More than 110,000 doses have been destroyed in Georgia, officials there said. Of the more than 53,000 doses wasted in New Jersey, nearly 20,000 were discarded in June, up from around 4,000 in April. In Ohio, more than 370,000 doses have been reported as unusable by state providers, while around 50,000 doses in Maryland were not used, officials said.

Reasons for vaccine wastage include breakage, storage and transportation problems, expiration, and shots that were prepared but not used after people did not show up for appointments, officials said. In many states, data show that wasted or unusable doses are no more than 2 per cent of those received from the federal government and successfully administered.

In Georgia, more than 8.5 million doses have been administered; the state’s unused doses total just 1.4 per cent of that number, officials said. Idaho has wasted about 2 per cent of delivered doses, and New Jersey less than half of 1 per cent.

Other states are likely to face some of the same issues as the 10 states whose data were reviewed by The New York Times, suggesting that the number of wasted doses in the country could be far higher.

The rise in wasted vaccine doses reflects the challenge American health officials face in inoculating residents, even as the more contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus fuels outbreaks among the unvaccinated across the US. Delta is also one driver of a rise in cases globally, and many countries are begging for vaccine doses.

“Early on, it was kind of a crisis because people wanted it and couldn’t get it, and now it’s a crisis because we’ve got it and people don’t want it,” said Dr Marcus Plescia, who represents state health agencies as the chief medical officer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

Many states have asked about redistributing unused vaccines abroad, but once the doses are shipped out to states, federal regulations prohibit recalling them. “Here we are with loads of vaccine, and there are other countries in the world where people are desperate for vaccination,” Dr Plescia said.

New York Times News Service