Wednesday, 22 December 2021

More expired vaccines destroyed in Africa

 In this case, the recipient nation is hardly to blame. According to today's news story, the Covid-19 vaccines had only two weeks' viability left when Covax despatched them to Nigeria. The Nigerians managed to administer almost half the doses in the short time they had available.

Questions have to be asked about the supply chain. Were they held up within the WHO, or was a donor nation at fault? Today's TV newsreel showed that the product was AstraZeneca's and that the labelling was in English. That might indicate the source as the USA or the UK. We know that the UK has virtually abandoned the AstraZeneca product in favour of Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna. On the other hand, English is a lingua franca in international commerce. 

Whether or not the batch in question was belatedly dumped by the Johnson government, the prime minister and the relevant departmental ministers need to be questioned about their donation policy, just as soon as government returns in the New Year.


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