Namibia Faces Destroying Up To 230,000 Covid Vaccines

Windhoek, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th Nov, 2021 ) :Namibia might be forced to destroy up to 230,000 Covid-19 vaccines which are nearing their expiry date due to a sluggish jab uptake, a senior health official said Friday.

The southern African country is struggling to convince its 2.5 million citizens to get inoculated with only 11.6 percent of the population vaccinated so far.

There are 52,261 AstraZeneca shots due to expire on Tuesday while 215,996 Pfizer jabs will reach their use-by date in January and February next year.

"As a general practice, any medicine that reaches its end of shelf life without being used, is disposed of as per prescribed procedure," health and social services director Ben Nangombe told AFP.

"Covid-19 vaccines...that are not utilised by the time of reaching their stated expiry dates will be disposed of accordingly," he said.

Nangombe said the decision to dispose of the vaccines was an unfortunate lost opportunity for people to be vaccinated.

He added that it was "a cause of concern that valuable resources such as these will end up being disposed of because of slow uptake."