A Precious Drop of Vaccine... Japan Faces Crisis of Discarding Thousands of Doses

Pfizer vaccine. Photo by Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Reporter Kang Juhee] Thousands of doses of COVID-19 vaccines are at risk of being discarded locally due to a defect in a freezer supplied by a Japanese company.

According to Kyodo News on the 13th, Japanese company EBAC, which manufactures ultra-low temperature freezers for storing COVID-19 vaccines, announced that a temperature rise issue was confirmed in their freezers.

The freezer was manufactured for storing Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines, and it is presumed that the problem occurred due to improper welding during the manufacturing process. EBAC decided to recall and replace 294 units of the product.

Kawasaki City announced today that it had to discard 6,396 doses of Pfizer vaccines stored in EBAC's ultra-low temperature freezers due to the temperature rise issue.

The freezer temperature was set to maintain around minus 75℃, but city staff confirmed during an inspection that the temperature had risen to about 9℃.