HONG KONG • Hong Kong is studying options such as donation of unused Covid-19 vaccine doses, some of which are set to expire as soon as August, amid struggles to boost a lacklustre local inoculation rate despite high demand for shots around the world.
The authorities will estimate how many excess doses they have and discuss how to handle the territory's mRNA vaccine stockpile with drug manufacturers, including postponing or cancelling the delivery of certain batches, the government said in a statement.
It is also considering giving doses to places that are more in need, via channels like the World Health Organisation's Covax scheme, as local demand for BioNTech's shots has "become sluggish", it said.
Some 840,000 BioNTech doses in storage will expire in mid-August, it said, and another 1.05 million from Chinese maker Sinovac Biotech remain unused.
Only a quarter of the BioNTech shots available daily are currently being administered, with about 10,000 people making bookings at community centres on a daily average, the government said, compared with a capacity of more than 40,000 doses.
The stockpile is the latest challenge facing Hong Kong's slower-than-expected vaccine roll-out, which has been impeded by a lack of trust in the Beijing-backed government and concerns about rare side effects. The public's widespread reluctance to get inoculated is making the city a global outlier in the race to achieve herd immunity and be able to fully reopen.
The government has been working to encourage residents to get their shots by providing incentives like reopening bars and shortening the quarantine period for vaccinated people.
The vaccine surplus could hurt Hong Kong's chances at getting more shots going forward, Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan wrote in a response to a lawmaker yesterday.
"In the next round of procurement negotiations with the drug manufacturers, we may not be able to get an outcome as desirable as that in the present round," she said.
"We do not know if we will be able to procure vaccine doses sufficient for the entire Hong Kong population in the next round."
BLOOMBERG
