As more people around the world are vaccinated, a new challenge is imminent; The shortage of syringes.
At the beginning of the pandemic, experts from the World Health Organization were counting on 70% of the world population to get vaccinated. Now, this number is increasing as countries are introducing third dose and as well as vaccines for younger children.
This is causing a real risk of having shortages of syringes because where there have been a lot of effort to ramp up production of vaccines worldwide, this hasn’t been done for syringes.
Auto disable syringes are those that can be disposed safely after vaccination without additional health protocol put in place to prevent reuse. These are the type of syringes that are used in developing countries for routine vaccinations. So, if these syringes were to run out, there is a serious risk that routine vaccination for children will be affected and with that, there will be a risk of having deadly diseases for children reoccurring.
According to the World Health Organization, more than 26.9 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines are being administered globally per day. This is nearly 5 times more the number of routine inoculations delivered daily before the pandemic. Experts are predicting that the world will be one billion short of syringes between 2022 and 2023.
60% of syringes in the world are produced in India and China. These two countries have also been severely affected by the Covid pandemic. Hence, it is important for governments and private sector worldwide to ramp up production of syringes and diversify those production.
UNICEF is concerned that if this situation is not urgently dealt with, there’s a risk that COVID-19 vaccination campaigns will slow down and that will likely prolong the pandemic.
