Poor storage ruins vaccines worth $3.7m

Minister of State for National Health Services says we have suspended officials concerned and are conducting inquiry

QUETTA/ ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has wasted $3.7million worth of vaccines donated to protect children from deadly diseases because officials failed to store them properly, a senior health official told Reuters on Monday.

The scandal is the latest problem to be exposed in the country’s poorly-run public health services. “We have suspended the officials concerned and are conducting an inquiry,” said Minister of State for National Health Services Saira Afzal Tarar.

The ruined vaccines were pentavalent vaccines, which combine different vaccines in one injection and are supposed to protect children against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B and bacteria that cause meningitis and pneumonia.

It must be stored at cold temperatures to remain effective; however, officials said, the vaccines were exposed to fluctuating temperatures, possibly because of faulty generators.

“There may have been issue with the generators, but the facts will become clear after the inquiry,” said Dr Saqlain Ahmad Gilani, the national programme manager at the Expanded Programme on Immunisation.

He said 1.3 million doses of vaccine worth $3.7 million had been wasted. They had been donated by Unicef. Last year, an international agency branded the government’s management of a national polio campaign ‘disastrous’. Doctors also say patients are regularly exposed to infected blood as authorities fail to monitor blood banks.

Pakistan is one of the three countries where poliovirus remains endemic. Vaccination efforts have been hampered by rumours that the shots cause infertility and by a ban from extremists who see vaccinators as an espionage tool by US intelligence services. Several polio fieldworkers have been killed in targeted attacks by extremists in different parts of the country.

In a related development, a vaccination campaign scheduled in three high-risk districts of Balochistan was once again postponed on Monday due to lack of security for vaccinators.

“There were no security personnel available to escort the vaccinators which is why we had to postpone the campaign,’ said an official at the Emergency Operation Centre. Most security personnel and police are deployed for the security of politicians and senior government officials, sources added.

According to the official, vaccination campaigns could not be started in Quetta, Zhob and Shirani districts while a drive was under way in five other districts of the province namely Jhal Magsi, Jaffarabad, Nasirabad and Pishin. More than 200,000 children were supposed to be vaccinated during the campaign in 17 zones of Quetta.

This is the second time vaccination campaign has been postponed in Quetta.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 3^rd, 2015.