The Ministry of Health is being questioned over whether it's following official guidelines with the Covid-19 vaccine.
Some vaccinators have been able to extract more than the recommended number of doses from a single vial.
Pfizer guidelines state that each vial contains up to six doses and each dose must contain 0.3 millilitres of the vaccine.
Any leftover less than that should be discarded.
It also notes not to mix remaining vaccine from multiple vials .
However, some vaccinators are getting a full extra dose with the use of a specific needle.
“Those new needles have allowed us to get in some cases seven doses out of each vial which is great, it means we can stretch them even further,” Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield says.
National questions whether that goes beyond what's been approved.
“The issue here is that Pfizer’s official recommendation is to take five or six doses only, if it's technically possible to take seven then Pfizer should say so,” National’s Covid-19 response spokesperson Chris Bishop says.
In a statement to 1 NEWS, Pfizer says it's unable to recommend the use of the vaccine in any way other than what's in the data sheet approved by Medsafe.
But, just like Pfizer, Medsafe's data sheet only mentions up to six doses with anything more open to debate.
“The concern with getting seven is that there may be some people who haven't got the exact right amount of dosage that they're meant to get,” Bishop said.
However, Bloomfield disagrees, “We wouldn't be doing that if there was any question about people being short-changed or not getting the full dose.”
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