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- The world could face a shortage of up to 2 billion vaccine syringes by 2022, said WHO expert Lisa Hedman.
- A massive syringe shortage could delay children's vaccines against common illnesses.
- The world is administering 6.8 billion vaccine doses per year, while 6 billion syringes are manufactured annually.
There could be a global shortage of one to two billion syringes for the COVID-19 vaccine in 2022, and it could delay vaccinations for children around the world or encourage poorer countries to unsafely reuse needles, said the World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday.
Manufacturers around the world need to find a way to ramp up production of disposable syringes for the jabs, said Lisa Hedman, WHO senior advisor for access to medicines and health products, per a UN news report.
"When you think about the magnitude of the number of injections being given to respond to the pandemic, this is not a place where we can afford shortcuts, shortages, or anything short of full safety for patients and healthcare staff," she told journalists at a UN briefing in Geneva.
Syringes are more prone to transport delays because they take up 10 times more space than vaccine doses, Hedman said.
Right now, countries around the world are administering around 6.8 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses a year, stacked against the global manufacturing capacity of 6 billion syringes a year, Hedman said.
Should the world continue with business as normal, the deficit next year could swell to two billion syringes, Reuters reported.
And if that isn't solved, the syringe shortage could affect routine jabs for common illnesses, especially for children, said the WHO expert, per Reuters.
Poorer countries may also try to reuse needles, said Hedman, which she said is dangerous even if the needles have been sterilized, as harmful bacteria could remain on the syringes, per the UN report.
UNICEF also warned of a syringe shortage in late October, projecting that the world could face a shortfall of 2.2 billion syringes next year.
It recommended several steps that countries can take to avoid the shortage, such as prioritizing syringe transportation just as governments did with vaccine doses and to stop hoarding vaccine equipment.
The WHO has repeatedly called for richer countries to support vaccine efforts in poorer nations, highlighting how providing more access to vaccines around the world will end the pandemic more quickly and lower the risk of new COVID-19 variants emerging.