The vials of the Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech contain six doses instead of five.
The laboratory therefore decided to reduce its deliveries, arguing that the orders had been placed in terms of doses, not vials.
But the withdrawal of the sixth dose requires a very special gesture and material.
The Pfizer laboratory will reduce the number of vials of Covid-19 vaccine delivered to European countries.
The health authorities consider that with a vial, we can finally inject six doses and not five and Pfizer argues that it had committed to a number of doses and not vials.
On the other hand, this forces medical personnel to take infinite precautions, because taking six doses instead of five requires a very special gesture.
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"The sixth dose may be more or less easy to recover"
The health authorities have therefore published technical notices intended for vaccinators.
The gesture requires more concentration, confirms Professor Olivier Epaulard, infectious disease specialist at Grenoble University Hospital, where 400 people are vaccinated every day.
This procedure also requires the use of some type of very fine needles to limit wastage.
Each dose contains precisely 0.3 ml.
"Concretely, we do not want that, when reconstituting the doses of vaccine, there is too much left in the sampling needles. In general, we almost always manage to take six times 0.3 ml but the sixth dose may be more or less easy to recover. "
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Everything is done to quickly equip the vaccination centers with these adapted needles, indicates the Ministry of Health.
In case of failure, if there is not enough liquid left for the sixth dose, the rule is clear: total prohibition of mixing the contents of two vials.