Some pharmacists have recently discovered that an extra dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine can be squeezed out of the vials being provided by the company.
Pfizer had claimed that each vial contains five doses, which some scientists are happily disagreeing with nowHowever, the vaccine manufacturer has now knocked on the doors of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to change the total number of shots to six for each vial in official documents tooThis step, some feel, has been taken by Pfizer to make sure the company can fulfil its commitment of supplying 200 million doses of the vaccine to the US government by the end of July.
However, Pfizer has disagreed with this theory and has claimed that their intention is solely to provide proper information to healthcare workers, and not provide less doses.
“We will fulfill our supply commitments in line with our existing agreements – which are based on delivery of doses, not vials – and we are confident in our ability to deliver 200 million doses of our vaccine to the U.S. government by July 31st,” Pfizer spokesperson told a local US media house.
“In a situation of limited vaccine supply amidst a public health crisis, our intent with this label change is to provide clarity to healthcare providers, minimize vaccine wastage, and enable the most efficient use of the vaccine,” the spokesperson added.
Many pharmacists, however, are not happy with this request from Pfizer as they claim the sixth dose can be extracted only in a few situations and is an extremely tricky task which requires a speciality syringe.
The FDA, however, has not yet approved this request ye
