Why thousands of Covid-19 vaccine doses going to waste in Africa

African countries have struggled to secure enough Covid-19 vaccines. So why are thousands of doses going to waste? While many African nations are still struggling to get enough Covid-19 vaccines to protect their populations, those that have managed to shore up doses are struggling to administer them in time. Now they're facing the bitter reality of having to destroy thousands of expired doses. By <a href="/profiles/julia-hollingsworth">Julia Hollingsworth</a> and Adam Renton, CNN CNN

While many African nations are still struggling to get enough Covid-19 vaccines to protect their populations, those that have managed to shore up doses are struggling to administer them in time. Now they're facing the bitter reality of having to destroy thousands of expired doses.

South Sudan has announced plans to discard about 59,000 of 191,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine it received in donations. In Malawi, at least 19,000 expired doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine will be publicly incinerated on Wednesday, the country's health ministry said in a statement to CNN. Meanwhile, more than 1 million AstraZeneca doses acquired through vaccine-sharing facility COVAX have been returned by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), following concerns that the shots may expire before they make it into arms.

A spokesperson for GAVI, the vaccines alliance that runs COVAX with the World Health Organization, told CNN that vaccines were only delivered through the scheme to countries who were ready to hit the ground running with immunizations and that all COVAX participants were informed of vaccine expiry dates in advance.

But African nations trying to scale up rollouts against the backdrop of weak health infrastructures, hard-to-reach rural areas and vaccine hesitancy are facing an uphill battle.

WHO told CNN that the destruction of expired vaccines was "deeply regrettable," especially in a context where doses are already scarce. But that the move was ultimately justified, especially in trying to build confidence among the public that vaccination programs are safe and effective.

"Discarding vaccines is deeply regrettable in the context of any immunization program," said Kate Ribet, spokesperson for WHO Africa's Covid-19 vaccine rollout.

"However, given the complex process required to verify their stability, and the risk of negative perception related to the use of expired doses, WHO recommends that COVID-19 vaccines already in the distribution chain should not be used beyond their labeled expiry date and should be safely disposed of."