Malawi burns 20,000 expired AZ vaccines

BLANTYRE, MALAWI: Malawi has burned nearly 20,000 doses of expired Astrazeneca vaccines, defying calls not to do so from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Malawi’s health minister Khumbize Kandodo Chiponda presided over the incineration on Wednesday at a hospital in Lilongwe, the capital city.

“We are destroying these vaccines because as per government policy, no expired health commodities are to be used,” she said. “Historically, under the expanded immunisation programme of Malawi, no expired vaccine has ever been used.”

She argued that the burning of the vaccines will prevent those with a negative perception of inoculations from using the excuse of expired vaccines from getting the shots.

The burned vaccines were the remainder of 102,000 doses that arrived in Malawi on March 26 with just 18 days until they expired on April 13. All other doses of the shipment, donated by the African Union, were administered.

More than 1.5 billion doses of anti-covid vaccines have been injected into people’s arms around the world, six months after the vaccination drive started, according to an AFP tally.

Nearly three fifths of the total have been administered in three countries: China (421.9 million), the United States (274.4 million) and India (184.4 million).