Some 50,000 Pfizer covid-19 vaccines will have to be incinerated at the end of this month when the drugs expire, estimated Sebastià Jaume, a Primary Care pharmacist who is part of the logistic team of the Servei de Salut for the vaccination against the pandemic disease.
The company contracted by the Servei de Salut to collect and dispose of the vaccines is Consenur, a group specialized in the management of biosanitary and cytotoxic waste, as well as industrial and chemical drugs, with its Mallorca headquarters in the Ses Veles industrial park in Palmanyola (Bunyola).
This external company was asked by the Servei de Salut whether it would carry out the incineration in Mallorca or would transfer the vials to the peninsula for subsequent destruction, but at the time of writing this information an answer had not yet been provided.
The main cause that has led to this waste is that the initial surge to vaccinate against covid-19 has been rapidly slowing down. In the period between the 1st and 7th of June, a total of 869 people have been vaccinated in the Balearic Islands against covid, a figure that broken down by islands translates into 619 inoculations on Mallorca, 110 on Menorca and 140 on Ibiza and Formentera, according to figures provided by the Servei de Salut.
Between the 1st and 7th of this month 869 people have had a vaccine compared to 20.000 in July 2021
Far from the records established in July of a year ago when in a vaccination week up to twenty thousand vaccines were dosed in the whole archipelago.
Sebastià Jaume regrets that at this time only people who need a third dose to travel and at risk groups, among which he cited people with cancer pathologies or with a weakened immune system, come to be vaccinated. The pharmacist admits that the current low numbers are largely due to “the population’s weariness with vaccines”.
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