March 8, 2021 – As vaccine distribution for COIVD-19 ramps up around the globe, experts are concerned that there may not be enough syringes to administer them with, reports The New York Times.
Officials in the United States and the European Union have said they need more. Further complicating the matter is that not all syringes will do the trick.
Japan revealed in February that it might have to discard millions of doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine if it couldn’t secure enough syringes able to draw out a sixth dose from vials. In January, the FDA advised healthcare providers in the U.S. that they could extract more doses from the Pfizer vials after hospitals there discovered that some contained enough for a sixth — or even a seventh — shot.
The world needs between eight billion and 10 billion syringes for Covid-19 vaccinations alone, experts say.
The industry has ramped up to meet demand. BD (Franklin Lakes, NJ), the world’s largest manufacturer of syringes, says it is producing 2,000 each minute to meet orders of more than a billion.