16 440 vaccine doses have expired: Malawi still has 254 816 AstraZeneca jabs available for use up to July 2021 

A month and a week since President Lazarus Chakwera launched the COVID-19 Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccination program on 11th March, 240,744 doses have been administered in the country with 11,524 being administered in the past 24 hours of Wednesday.

However, 16,440 vaccine doses have expired as of Tuesday, 13th April due to people not taking advantage of the open phase of the vaccination for all people aged over 18 — prompting the Presidential taskforce on COVID-19 to urge the public to speed up getting vaccinated.

In her Wednesday’s situation report, the taskforce’s co-chairperson, Health Ministers Khumbize Kandodo Chiponda says due to varying expiry dates of the received vaccine consignments, 254,816 doses are still available for use up to July 2021.

She said the Ministry of Health has since recalled all expired COVID-19 vaccine doses from all districts and facilities for destruction in line with government pharmaceuticals disposal guidelines.

“You can get vaccinated in designated Government and CHAM facilities in all districts,” she said, reiterating that the COVID-19 vaccine is being rolled out to help to reduce deaths, the risk of hospitalization and severe diseases from the pandemic.

Meanwhile, in the past 24 hours of Wednesday, the country registered 19 new cases, 78 new recoveries and one new death from Blantyre District.

Of the new cases, 18 of the new cases are locally transmitted — six each from Blantyre and Lilongwe, two from Mzimba North and one each from Machinga, Mzimba South, Ntchisi, and Rumphi Districts while one imported case, a new arrival at Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Dowa District.

Cumulatively, Malawi has recorded 33,891 cases including 1,134 deaths (case fatality rate at 3.35%) and cumulatively, 31,675 cases have now recovered at the recovery rate of 93.5%.

There were 134 cases that were lost to follow-up — bringing the total number of active cases to 948.

Only two new cases were admitted in the treatment units and there were a total of 20 active cases that are hospitalised – seven in Blantyre, six in Lilongwe, two each from Mchinji and Zomba, and one each from Balaka, Dowa, and Kasungu Districts.

This data comes from 617 COVID-19 tests that were conducted on Wednesday, of which 145 tests were through SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Rapid Diagnostic test while the rest were through RT-PCR.

The positive cases out of the total of the past 24 hours of Wednesday translates to a positivity rate of 3.1% while a weekly positivity rate (seven days moving average) is at 4.2%.

Cumulatively, 225,576 tests have been conducted in the country so far.

“No one is safe until everyone else is safe,” says Kandodo Chiponda. “Get vaccinated; protect yourself; your loved ones and everyone.”

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