{"id":3998,"date":"2021-02-16T12:37:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-16T08:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qia.az\/en\/?p=3998"},"modified":"2021-02-16T12:31:04","modified_gmt":"2021-02-16T08:31:04","slug":"japan-says-part-of-pfizer-vaccines-may-be-discarded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qia.az\/en\/japan-says-part-of-pfizer-vaccines-may-be-discarded\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan says part of Pfizer vaccines may be discarded"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Millions of people in Japan won\u2019t receive Pfizer\u2019s coronavirus vaccine as planned due to a shortage of specialist syringes \u2013 an oversight that could frustrate the country\u2019s inoculation program,\u00a0<strong>&#8220;Q\u0130A.AZ&#8221;\u00a0<\/strong>informs referring to\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/feb\/10\/japan-pfizer-vaccine-doses-wrong-syringes\" target=\"_blank\">The Guardian<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Standard syringes in use in Japan are unable to extract the sixth and final dose from each vial manufactured by the US drugmaker, according to the health minister, Norihisa Tamura.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Japan has secured 144m shots of the Pfizer vaccine \u2013 enough for 72 million people \u2013 assuming that each vial contained six doses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to Pfizer, each recipient requires two jabs, three weeks apart, to increase the level of protection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But a shortage of low \u2018dead space\u2019 syringes \u2013 which have narrow plungers that can push out any leftover vaccine \u2013 means vaccinators in Japan will have to use mainly standard syringes capable of extracting only five doses per vial, or enough for 60 million people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The syringes used in Japan can only draw five doses,&#8221; Tamura said, according to the Kyodo news agency. &#8220;We will use all the syringes we have that can draw six doses, but it will, of course, not be enough as more shots are administered.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The government is requesting medical equipment manufacturers to increase the production of specialist syringes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When Japan begins its COVID immunization program in mid-February \u2013 several months later than many other developed economies \u2013 health workers who cannot extract the sixth dose will have to discard them, the government\u2019s top spokesman, Katsunobu Kato, said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Millions of people in Japan won\u2019t receive Pfizer\u2019s coronavirus vaccine as planned due to a shortage of specialist syringes \u2013 an oversight that could frustrate the country\u2019s inoculation program,\u00a0&#8220;Q\u0130A.AZ&#8221;\u00a0informs referring to\u00a0The Guardian. Standard syringes in use in Japan are unable to extract the sixth and final dose from each vial manufactured by the US drugmaker,&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/qia.az\/en\/japan-says-part-of-pfizer-vaccines-may-be-discarded\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Japan says part of Pfizer vaccines may be discarded<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4000,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qia.az\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qia.az\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qia.az\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qia.az\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qia.az\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qia.az\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qia.az\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qia.az\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qia.az\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qia.az\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}