More than 5.6 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines bought on loan by the Ugandan government have expired, and are set to be destroyed.
The vaccines valued at Ugx28.1 billion ($7.3m; £5.8m) were purchased using a World Bank loan, with authorities now saying the expired vaccines are being withdrawn from health facilities to be destroyed.
Authorities also expect the total losses from expired Covid vaccines to surpass $78 million (over Ugx290 billion) by the end 2024.
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In the report submitted to parliament on Tuesday, January 9, 2024, the Auditor General John Muwanga also said that other drugs worth $8.6m, mostly HIV antiretroviral drugs (ARVs), have expired after they were phased out by changes in recommended treatment guidelines by the World Health Organization-WHO.
“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,” Moses Kamabare who is the head of National Medical Stores-NMS, Uganda’s drug procurement agency says.
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