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Kiwifruit ingenuity has figured out how to extract six doses from a vial of Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine with a type of syringe from which other nations have only been able to extract five doses.
In Japan, millions of doses of the Covid vaccine will reportedly be discarded because the nation does not have the correct type of syringes to draw six doses from each vial.
The Pfizer vaccine comes in vials that give five or six doses, depending on the syringe.
To draw the sixth dose, vaccinators must use what is called a “low dead space” syringe. The “low dead space” is the amount that remains in the vial when the plunger is pushed all the way down.
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Massive international demand for low dead space syringes has caused a shortage.
This month there have been concerns that a sixth of Australia’s vaccine supply was at risk because its government had failed to secure enough syringes with little dead space.
Last Wednesday, Things revealed that the New Zealand government had secured enough specialized syringes to ensure that none of its vaccine stocks went to waste.
However, it appears that New Zealand vaccinators don’t even need them.
During a press conference on February 24, Chief Health Officer Dr. Ashley Bloomfield said healthcare professionals had figured out how to get six doses out of Pfizer vials, without using a syringe with little dead space.
“From the beginning, our nurses have been able to get six doses, in most cases, from these five-dose vials, even with normal needles and syringes,” said Bloomfield.
Bloomfield said the technique involved inverting the bottle to prevent gas from entering the syringe.
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The Pfizer vaccine comes in vials that give five or six doses, depending on the syringe.
“Low residual volume syringes and needles will almost guarantee that we can do that every time,” he said.
It is not clear exactly how healthcare workers discovered the method.
It is also unclear why healthcare workers had not been exclusively using the low dead space syringes that officials confirmed were obtained.
The Ministry did not provide details on whether there had been any delay in the receipt or distribution of the low dead space syringe.
“In many cases, we can safely remove up to six doses from the vial using standard needles and syringes,” a ministry spokeswoman said.
“The ability to get six doses from each vial became apparent when we started administering the vaccine. Vaccination programs around the world have reported similar results when using standard needles and syringes.
“It is important to note that the use of standard needles is just as safe and effective as the use of needles with little dead space. There are no shortcuts or security compromises. “
