Physical wastage of immunobiological products in the state of Ceará, Brazil, 2014-2016

to describe discarded wasted immunobiological products provided by the National Im-munization Program (PNI) to the State of Ceará between 2014 and 2016, and the costs of discarded doses.

this was a descriptive study using data from suspect im-munobiological product evaluation forms and data from disposal approval forms.

a total of 317 forms were included, 72.0% of which had a disposal approval form, and 160,767 discarded doses were identified, at a total cost of BRL 1,834,604.75; wastage accounted for 0.45%, 0.93% and 0.53% of the total cost of vaccines in 2014, 2015 and 2016, respectively; the main reason for the wastage identified was electric power shortage (54.9%).

we identified a large number of discarded wasted doses, with high absolute cost; tighter control is necessary, as failures in conservation dynamics may interfere with the supply of immunobiologicals.