KUALA LUMPUR, July 6 — A total of 6.25 tonnes of empty vaccine vials has been disposed of as clinical waste since the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (NIP) was launched on Feb 24.

Ministry of Health (MoH) Engineering Services Division, in a statement, said those were the vials of Covid-19 vaccines given to 7,593,179 recipients as of June 28.

"All empty vaccine vials generated from each vaccination centre (PPV) will be gathered at the PPV store daily and will be sent to the relevant hospital to be weighed before they were taken out in accordance with the stipulated frequency of clinical waste disposal,” it said.

Apart from the vials, sharps waste such as needles and syringes from the vaccination process are also classified as clinical waste.

It said the disposal of these clinical waste will be carried out by qualified clinical waste disposal companies appointed by the government at the Department of Environment or DoE-licensed clinical waste treatment plants.

"The process will be monitored by MoH and the DoE. So far, there are 12 plants for this purpose nationwide,” it said.

On preparations to manage a larger number of empty vaccine vials following the increase in vaccination rate, which is expected to reach 300,000 doses per day this month, the statement said the onus is on the appointed companies to provide adequate and qualified manpower to handle the process.

"The MoH believes that the companies will make necessary preparations to increase their manpower in line with the increase in the volume of clinical waste generated,” it added. — Bernama