W.H.O Urges African Nations To Keep Expired Covid Vaccines

The World Health Organization (WHO) has urged African countries not to destroy Covid-19 vaccines that may have passed their expiry date but to keep hold of them and wait for further guidance.

The appeal comes after Malawi and South Sudan said they would destroy over 70,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab because they expired in mid-April.

Malawi said it planned to destroy more than 16,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which were manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII), because their expiry date was 13 April.

South Sudan, meanwhile, planned to discard some 59,000 doses for the same reason.

But the Africa Centres for Disease Control (Africa CDC) said it had been assured the doses were safe to use although the final decision on whether to use expired jabs rests with national drug regulators,.

The vaccine doses were reportedly donated to 13 African countries through a partnership between the African Union (AU) and the telecommunication company MTN Group.

The AU bought one million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from South Africa, which had stopped using the jab amid doubts over its effectiveness against a new variant that had become dominant in the country.

The Africa CDC sent the doses to countries in late March, a few weeks before they expired.

Apparently, many vaccines can be used up to 36 months after manufacture, but because Covid-19 jabs are so new there is not enough data to prove their effectiveness over longer periods.