7,500 AstraZeneca doses for Bicol returned to DOH after container found with defective thermometer
LEGAZPI CITY—At least 7,500 doses of British-made AstraZeneca vaccines that had been sent to Bicol for the region’s health workers were returned to the Department of Health (DOH) office on Monday (March 22) because these had been packed in container with defective thermometer.
AstraZeneca vaccines need to be stored in temperatures of 2 to 8 degrees Celsius.
“The thermometer was defective, so we didn’t know if the vaccines were still within the allowed temperature which is between 2 to 8 degrees Centigrade,” said Noemi Bron, officer-in-charge of the health promotion unit of DOH Bicol, in an interview on Wednesday (March 24).
Bron said the vaccines were put on hold after regional DOH officials found that the thermometer in the vaccine container was defective.
The returned batch was part of the 22,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines delivered to the region last March 10.
