Malawi has destroyed 19,610 doses of AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines that expired 18 days after arriving, despite assurances from the African Union (AU) and World Health Organization (WHO) that the vaccines were safe until mid-July.
A batch of 102,000 vaccines arrived on 26 March, under an initiative by the AU and WHO, and they expired on 13 April, leaving less than three weeks for them to be used.
Malawi managed to deploy about 80% of them by that time. John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), part of the AU, told a news conference late last month that the shots could be used until 13 July, based on a further analysis conducted by manufacturers the Serum Institute of India (SII).