Uganda to destroy expired Covid vaccines worth $7m

More than 5.6 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines bought on loan by the Ugandan government have expired, an audit report has said.

The vaccines are valued at 28.1bn Ugandan shillings ($7.3m; £5.8m) and were purchased using a World Bank loan.

Authorities say the expired vaccines will be withdrawn from health facilities and destroyed.

In the report submitted to parliament on Tuesday, Uganda’s Auditor General John Muwanga also said that other drugs worth $8.6m, mostly HIV antiretroviral drugs (ARVs), have expired after they were phased out by changes in recommended treatment guidelines by the WHO.

Authorities expect the total losses from expired Covid vaccines to surpass $78m by the end of this year.

“The demand for Covid vaccines is now at zero. We no longer receive any Covid vaccine orders. If we don’t have any people that need or health facilities requisitioning for these Covid vaccines, we expect more covid vaccines to expire on us,” the head of Uganda’s drug procurement agency Moses Kamabare told public broadcaster UBC.

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