South Sudan cans the use of AstraZeneca vaccine over expiry date
The World Health Organisation however noted that the vaccine’s expiry date was different from its shelf life.
JOHANNESBURG, April 20 (ANA) – Health officials in South Sudan have stopped administering 60,000 doses of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine that are past the expiration date but still have a shelf life of at least six months according to the drugmaker and the World Health Organisation, the Voice of America reported.
The news outlet reported on Monday that the doses donated by mobile telecommunications network MTN and the African Union arrived in the South Sudanese capital Juba about three weeks ago.
“We later discovered the lifespan of this vaccine is just remaining 14 days, so immediately we started engaging because if we start them, we may not be able to finish, so the ministry is now engaging the AU and the team with regards to that effect,” it quoted Dr. Richard Lako, the incident manager for Covid-19 operations at the health ministry, as saying.
But WHO emergency team leader Dr. Guyo Argata Guracha stressed that the vaccine’s expiry date was different from its shelf life.
“The shelf life of this vaccine is six months from now. We cannot say it is really expired but we can talk of the shelf life, which is six months,” Guracha said.
Earlier this month, WHO South Sudan said in a statement posted on its website that the North African country had started its Covid-19 vaccination drive, with health workers getting their first dose of the AstraZeneca drug at the Juba Teaching Hospital.
The first person to be vaccinated against the virus was Minister of Health Elizabeth Achuei.
At the time, she said the first phase of the vaccination in the Central Equatoria state would target health care workers as well as people aged 65 years and older, given their increased risk of severe disease and death due to a potential Covid-19 infection.
To date, South Sudan has recorded 10,473 Covid-19 cases, out of which 10,215 people have recovered while 114 have died.
– African News Agency (ANA), Editing by Stella Mapenzauswa