Thousands of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine doses have been burnt.
Gatekeepers News reports that Malawi’s health authorities on Wednesday publicly incinerated a total of 19,610 expired doses of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, in a bid to convince the citizens regarding the safety of the jabs they receive.
Malawi had on the 26th of March, 2021, received 102,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from the African Union and has used about 80% of the doses.
Gatekeepers News reports that the expiry tags on the COVID-19 vaccine delivered to Malawi was 13 April and officials said the vials were taken out of the cold chain after it expired.
Malawi’s Principal Health Secretary lamented that it was unfortunate they had to destroy the vials but noted that the advantages of destroying them surpassed the hazards.
“When news spread that we had out-of-date vaccines, we noticed that people were not coming to our clinics to get immunised,” said Dr Charles Mwansambo.
“If we don’t burn them, people will think that we are using expired vaccines in our facilities and if they don’t come Covid-19, will hit them hard.”
Earlier, the World Health Organisation advised nations to destroy the COVID-19 vaccine that has reached the expiry date set by the manufacturer.
“Any vaccine that has passed its expiry date, including Covishield, should not be administered. While discarding vaccines is deeply regrettable in the context of any immunization programme, WHO recommends that these expired doses should be removed from the distribution chain and safely disposed,” the Health Organisation said in a statement seen by Gatekeepers News on Monday.
Malawi, a nation with about 18 million people, has so far reported 34,232 cases of COVID-19 and 1,153 deaths.
