Penelope Canonico
08/14/2021 6:01 AM
Clarín.com
Society
Updated 08/14/2021 6:01 AM
Minister Vizzotti insisted more than once that the doses of the coronavirus vaccine "do not expire."
But beyond the debate that even the experts themselves cannot settle on the duration of the antibodies, there is an expiration date that vaccines do have.
And that, in some cases, forced this precious commodity to be thrown away.
Like any drug, all
Covid vaccines
have an
expiration date
inscribed on the vial that packages them.
The useful life time while the vial is closed and remains in storage runs along a different lane than the duration it acquires once it is opened and applied.
Gabriel Battistella, Undersecretary of Primary Care of the Buenos Aires Ministry of Health, explains to
Clarín
that the
expiration is
heterogeneous
, depending on the batch, and
is usually
limited
, within a year, but never less than two months.
If they are kept at the temperature indicated by each leaflet,
how long can they last before being applied
?
"It depends on the date they were manufactured and the time before the expiration date in which they were delivered," replies Arnaldo Casiró, head of Infectious Diseases at Hospital Álvarez.
Average expiration dates for Moderna, Pfizer, and Janssen are approximately
six months in length
, based on trials submitted by manufacturers to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
"We are investigating
how the potency of vaccines already bottled up
is being investigated
to determine if they can be extended more than what has been said," outlines neurologist Conrado Estol.
The indication of the expiration date of a lot of AstraZeneca.
For his part, Marcelo Peretta, head of the Union of Pharmacists and Biochemists, points out that "since Covid is a flu virus,
the strain is mutating year by year
",
which means that "new vaccines should be generated based on the different variants that circulate in 2022."
Any
expired vaccine must be
discarded
because it has fallen in efficacy and therefore does not work.
Its fate is to end up in a garbage can as happened in Israel
,
which discarded 80,000 doses because the pharmaceutical company that manufactured them did not authorize the extension of their expiration date.
Here no expired vaccines were thrown, but they were applied: it happened in Chubut with doses of Covishield.
Those who received them had to be vaccinated again.
Vaccines received
Since the beginning of the immunization campaign, Argentina has received 43,401,930 vaccines, of which 14,768,000 correspond to Sinopharm;
12,468,830 to Sputnik V (9,375,670 from component 1 and 3,093,160 from component 2);
10,471,500 to those of AstraZeneca and Oxford whose active principle was produced in Argentina;
3,500,000 to Moderna;
1,944,000 to AstraZeneca through the WHO COVAX mechanism;
580,000 to AstraZeneca-Covishield and 200,000 to Cansino.
The City and Province Health portfolios agree that it
would be exceptional to rule out vaccines.
In fact, they do not even analyze it as a problem, since they are administered quickly.
"They do not last 72 hours when they arrive,
" says a Buenos Aires official.
It is that the production of the laboratories does not finish satisfying the demand, as shown by the lack of component 2 of Sputnik.
Expiration date written on a Covishield vial
"
The expiration time will depend on the formulation of each vaccine in general
. Some are liquid, others come in lyophilized format, which influences the variation of time. It is important to
visualize whether the components maintain chemical and physical stability
. For example, the expiration date in Sputnik V is six months after its preparation ”, explains Daniela Hozbor, Conicet principal investigator at the Institute of Biotechnology and Molecular Biology.
And he continues: “According to
how the components of each dose are preserved,
their qualities, structures and thus the immune response can be modified (those of RNA such as Pfizer and Moderna have more sensitive material).
Some can even degrade.
For this reason, stability tests are carried out and they must be conserved according to what the manufacturer indicates to evaluate that they continue to function as they did when they were prepared ”.
Transfer of Sinopharm vaccines in Mendoza, at the end of April.
Photo Orlando Pelichotti / Los Andes
Is that beyond the expiration date written on the lot, its duration will depend on the
temperature in which they are stored
. Each injection has a leaflet (vaccinator's manual) with precise storage instructions. Some have to remain frozen and are thawed for use; others require a cold chain in a common refrigerator.
The closed multidose vial of AstraZeneca should be stored at refrigeration temperature (2 ° to 8 ° Celsius) and, once opened, for the extraction of the first dose it is recommended to use the contents as soon as possible and within the following six hours.
Instead, Sputnik V requires a cold chain that ensures a temperature of -18 ° or less for all stages of storage and transport from the moment of production to the moment of use.
For this reason, many times, the expiration is associated more with
an error related to the storage of the stock
that is generated when it is not carried out in the proper way.
ACE
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