Out-of-date, undistributed, vaccines valued at more than €103 million were sent for destruction by the HSE over a three-year period, the Medical Independent (MI) has learned.
The period covers the years 2022, 2023, and 2024. The data, released under Freedom of Information (FoI) law, includes several different types of vaccines, including those for influenza and Covid-19.
This stock was not distributed to sites for vaccination programmes.
In 2022, vaccine stock valued at over €5 million, which comprised more than 430,000 doses, was sent for destruction. This included over 289,000 doses of the quadrivalent influenza vaccine, the records reveal.
Vaccines are sent for destruction when they have expired and therefore cannot be administered safely to patients.
In 2023, vaccines valued at more than €62 million were sent for destruction by the HSE. The overwhelming majority of the vaccines were for Covid-19 – more than two million doses in all – from various suppliers.
The value of stock sent for destruction in 2024 totalled over €36 million, and as with 2023, the majority of vaccines destroyed were for Covid-19.
Over the same three-year time period, data shows that the value of vaccines distributed by the HSE totalled more than €200 million. The bulk of this spend, around €134 million, went towards Covid-19 vaccines.
Separately, more than €13 million in unused vaccines was returned to the HSE for destruction from 2022 to 2024.
The HSE said that as vaccination programmes change, “particularly for the Covid-19 vaccine programme over the years, it is inevitable that the unpredictability of demand will increase and attendance profiles fluctuate.”
During the Covid-19 vaccination programme in 2021, AstraZeneca and Janssen vaccines that were close to expiry and/or unused were recalled by the HSE. At the time, there was a shift in the HSE’s vaccination programme strategy towards the use of mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna.
“This is normal risk management practice for vaccine programmes to ensure expired vaccines are not administered. These were small in number relative to the number of Covid-19 vaccines administered in Ireland,” the HSE informed MI in the FoI response.
The HSE added that its vaccination programme “continues to minimise the risk of unused vaccines through its supply chain management systems”.
“The LAIV [live attenuated influenza vaccine] has a shorter expiry date than other vaccines and so may expire during the influenza vaccine programme.”
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