Vaccination: towards a syringe shortage in 2022 due to Covid-19?
Even if manufacturers increased their production capacity, it would take a long time before the products were available.
ZaldyImg / Flickr / Wikipedia
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
After the rush for vaccines, soon the rush for syringes.
It's very serious: boosted by the pandemic, the demand for syringes exploded in 2021, far exceeding the production capacities of the States.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is concerned and warns of the risk of a shortage of equipment in 2022.
Advertising
Read more
With our correspondent in Geneva,
Jérémie Lanche
To fully understand the impact of the pandemic on the medical equipment market, it suffices to recall that nearly 7 billion vaccines against Covid-19 have already been used worldwide.
This is more than twice the number of vaccines normally injected each year, excluding the pandemic.
Vaccines as essential as that against measles.
The risk is that of having vaccines against the most dangerous diseases, but of not having the syringes to administer them, warns Lisa Hedman of the WHO: “
One of the major consequences of a shortage syringes, it could be a delay in immunization programs. The effects could be felt for years to come, if we were left with an entire generation of children who weren't vaccinated against childhood illnesses. The other problem is the reuse of used syringes, which is very dangerous. It is known that this practice tends to increase when syringes are not available.
"
Much of the syringes used for vaccines are now manufactured in China and India.
But even if manufacturers increased their production capacity, it would take a long time before the products were available.
The short-term solution, says the WHO, is for governments to order only the stocks they need.
Exactly the reverse of what happened with the Covid-19 vaccines.
► Read also: Macron conditions the health pass on the booster vaccine dose for people over 65
Newsletter
Receive all international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
Health and medicine
Trade and Trade
Coronavirus
WHO