Uganda is set to destroy more than 5.6 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, with an audit saying they have expired.
The vaccines, valued at 28.1 billion Ugandan shillings (KSh1.18 billion; $7.3 million), are said to have been purchased using a loan the East African country took from World Bank.
The audit report, presented to Parliament this week by Auditor General John Muwanga, painted a grim picture in Uganda’s health sector, also revealing that other drugs worth KSh1.37 billion ($8.6m) have expired.
This second set of drugs — which are mostly HIV antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) — expired after they were phased out by World Health Organisation’s (WHO) changes in treatment guidelines.
The head of Uganda’s drug procurement agency Moses Kamabare told public broadcaster UBC that the expiry of the COVID drugs was due to zero demand of them in the market.
“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,” Kamabare said.
