The Democratic Republic of Congo has begun distributing hundreds of thousands of expired COVID-19 vaccines to other African countries because it will not be able to administer all doses before they expire at the end of June, its health minister said on Thursday.
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On Thursday afternoon, a plane from Angola picked up almost half a million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which had been delivered to Congo through the COVAX vaccine dispatch facility on March 2.
Congo delayed launch after several European countries suspended the use of the AstraZeneca shot in response to reports of rare blood clots.
Ghana, Togo, the Central African Republic and Madagascar will also receive some of the 1.3 million doses that Congo is redistributing, Health Minister Jean-Jacques Mbungani told Reuters.
“It is a sign of solidarity that Congo is giving to its brother countries,” Mbungani said.
Congo will recover these doses via the COVAX system at a later date, he said. “It’s important to relocate, it’s the right term, it’s not a donation.”
Congo received 1.7 million doses, but has only vaccinated 2,035 people in the nine days since it launched, the minister said.
The country has registered only 30,000 cases of coronavirus, resulting in 763 deaths.
COVAX, supported by the World Health Organization (WHO), aims to deliver 600 million shots – most of them from AstraZeneca – to some 40 African countries this year. That would be enough to vaccinate 20% of their population.
The situation in the Congo illustrates the challenges facing many African countries in launching such comprehensive vaccination campaigns despite their experience in fighting deadly infectious diseases.
Some health authorities do not have enough staff and training to distribute vaccines at short notice and lack vital equipment due to funding shortfalls of billions of dollars, according to experts.
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