Malawi burns nearly 20,000 expired COVID-19 shots despite assurances on shelf life

The Malawian government said it would not give expired vaccines to its citizens. [Reuters]

Malawi on Wednesday 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 Organisation (WHO) that the vaccines were safe until mid-July.

A batch of 102,000 vaccines arrived on March 26, under an initiative by the AU and WHO, and they expired on April 13, leaving less than three weeks for them to be used. Malawi managed to deploy about 80 per cent of them by that time.