Over 27,000 Doses of Expired AstraZeneca Vaccine Spoiled

Since the start of COVID-19 vaccinations in 2021, Armenia has acquired a total of 389,500 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, of which 27,680 have spoiled due to expiration.

The investigative website Hetq had submitted a written inquiry to the Ministry of Health, requesting information about how many doses of the acquired vaccines have been used to date and the reasons for losses of each type of vaccine.

The ministry did not respond to our two questions, stating only that the losses are within acceptable limits. The acceptable loss limit varies depending on the number of doses contained in a single vial. For example, for a vial with a single dose, the acceptable loss is 5%; for vials with 2-5 doses, it is 10%; and for vials containing 10 doses, it may be up to 20%. This means that for a single vial of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which contains 10 doses (5 ml), 2 doses (1 ml) could spoil, and that would be considered a loss, but acceptable.

As of November 10, Armenia has obtained a total of 2,367,000 doses of vaccines against COVID-19 through both purchases and donations, including 800,000 doses of Sinopharm, 730,700 doses of Moderna, 389,500 doses of AstraZeneca, 347,060 doses of Sputnik V, and 100,000 doses of CoronaVac.