Health workers pointed out as a mistake what was expressed by Bukele, who said they were recycling thermal boxes of measles, rubella and mumps vaccines that came in Feb. 3 to transport the doses against Sars-CoV-2.
“It’s a ridiculous argument.” So direct was Dr. Eduardo Espinoza, Continental Coordinator of the Latin American Association of Social Medicine (ALAMES), who stressed that, if true, the government will recycle and reuse these boxes of MMR vaccine (against rubella, measles and mumps) who received drugs for the transport of COVID-19 on February 3, made a mistake.
President Nayib Bukele posted on his Twitter that boxes of MMR vaccines entered the country on Feb. 3, adding that “the boxes are being recycled and used to protect smaller boxes,” the Serum Institute of India government said about drugs against COVID. to be. -19.
SEE: PAHO clarifies that thermal box came in Feb. 3 with measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines
Detail of the box of vaccines against COVID-19 delivered in Santa Rosa de Lima. / Photo EDH courtesy
Recycling those boxes in this way “is not a correct procedure at all, it never has been and will not be today, because the president says he will. Simply because it breaks the cold chain. You cannot package this type of content, in this case the COVID-19 vaccines, if it is not in properly refrigerated containers. And that is sealed, you do not have to open, break the box and change (box) ”, appreciated the former Deputy Minister of Health.
“The box has already been sealed, with the instructions that the cold chain must be maintained, which is inviolable, otherwise the vaccine will lose effectiveness. It’s a bit crazy, the argument seems ridiculous. It is already well packaged and delivered protected. They put it in containers that are guaranteed to keep the vaccine frozen, and they package it properly. It is not a container that deteriorates and requires them to replace the container when they get here, but it reaches their destination, in this case to the health department where they are going to store it, ”emphasized Espinoza.
Bukele’s tweet confirms they recycle boxes of measles vaccines to carry doses of COVID-19 vaccines
“It is striking that they distribute the COVID vaccines in the same boxes that the MMR vaccines came in, while the COVID vaccines are believed to have their own boxes,” said infectious physician Iván Solano Leiva, a member of the College Doctor from El Salvador.
Espinoza also pointed out that it is in any case not medically correct to reuse these MMR vaccine boxes and use them to transport COVID-19 vaccines because “it is bio-infectious waste. They must not recycle the boxes, they must throw them away and destroy them, just like any other material that is biological waste, especially in hospitals ”.
VIDEO: El Salvador receives first batch of 20,000 AstraZeneca vaccines against Covid-19 from India
In addition, Dr. Spinoza clarified that it is rare for the government to report direct purchase of vaccines from the Serum Institute of India because when he served as Deputy Minister of Health in recent periods, they were obtained through the World Health Organization (WHO) .
“All our vaccines were guaranteed by the WHO, we made no direct purchases. We gave the money to the WHO, and they, like all of Latin America, were in charge of negotiating favorable prices with the vaccine manufacturers, and they guaranteed their quality until we got them. This for all vaccines, including MME. MMR vaccine produced in Europe, the United States, India or China could come, and there was a quality guarantee issued by the WHO, ”described Dr. Espinoza.
As a former health department official, Espinoza lamented that “20 months after taking office, there is no national health policy, no health plan, no pandemic treatment plan, and therefore no vaccination plan. It is a chain that indicates the lack of planning and incompetence of this government ”.