More than 500 COVID-19 vaccine doses missing, 350 wasted in Lahore hospitals

LAHORE: Sources at the provincial health department on Wednesday revealed that about 350 doses of coronavirus vaccine stored in the city's Government Mozang Teaching Hospital have gone to waste due to the non-provision of the optimum temperature. 

Meanwhile, some 550 doses of the vaccine have disappeared from the Services Hospital. 

According to a report by Geo.tv,  the missing vaccine doses have been reportedly administered to important personalities, bureaucrats, and their friends, sources at the health department said, adding that Federal Minister for Housing Tariq Bashir Cheema of the Pakistan Muslim League – Quaid (PML-Q), along with his wife, also received the COVID-19 jab from the missing doses.

Meanwhile, the principal of the Services Hospital maintains that the vaccines did not go missing from the hospital but there have been discrepancies in the records. 

Regarding the issue of the missing vaccine doses, provincial Health Minister Dr Yasmin Rashid said that an audit of the vaccines is currently being carried out by the authorities and a report related to that will be released soon. 

It should be noted that the medical superintendent of the Services Hospital has been suspended after the 350 doses of vaccine went to waste.

Per sources, the 350 doses of vaccine stored at the Mozang hospital had to be wasted because of the absence of an optimum temperature.

The vaccines had to be stored at 2 to 8 degrees Centigrade, but hospital staffers kept them in the freezer which rendered them ineffective.