Scandal: Western powers dump expired COVID-19 vaccines in Africa

Several African countries have been forced to discard more than 3 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines donated, actually dumped, by major Western powers because the vaccines expired within months of being received as donations.

This scandal comes at a time when many countries on the African continent are facing "vaccine nationalism" from the West.

According to a report by The Global Times, the vaccine nationalist mentality in Western countries is the number one cause of vaccine waste in Africa, the experts said. Western countries stockpile excess vaccines and "donate" them to African countries when they are about to expire, for political show.

They don't care about whether Africa lacks vaccine storage conditions and primary care services, and these unusable vaccines drain the expectations and budgets of African countries.

The case of Nigeria

The WHO Regional Office of Africa confirmed to the Global Times that vaccine discard in African countries is a noted situation. On December 22, 2021, the Nigerian government destroyed more than 1.06 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine at a landfill on the outskirts of the capital city Abuja. According to media reports, these vaccines were part of the more than 2.59 million doses Nigeria received from Europe in October 2021, and had expired in November.

The destruction of these vaccines followed reports that vaccines received from Europe through the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access program (COVAX) arrived in Nigeria with only four to six weeks of viability remaining, making them unusable for the timely inoculation of populations in the African country.

Concerning the heartbreaking news that more than 1 million doses of vaccines would be destroyed in a country with less than a 4 percent full vaccination rate, the Nigerian Ministry of Health issued a statement saying that many low- and middle-income countries have experienced similar situations.

The Ministry called on vaccine donors to start the donation process as soon as possible so that recipient countries are able to receive the vaccine with a longer shelf life to avoid wastage.

Nigeria said it is no longer accepting vaccine donations with short, unviable shelf lives.

Nigeria is not the first country to destroy expired vaccines. Senegalese authorities also recently said that 400,000 doses of expired vaccines would be destroyed.

Malawi burned 20,000 doses of expired vaccines in May 2021, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) returned 1.3 million doses of vaccines due to expiration.
Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe have asked Pfizer, in the last several months, to pause shipments because of challenges with vaccine uptake, according to the company's statement.

Political showmanship

The situation is regrettable, especially as Africa remains the least vaccinated continent against COVID-19, Adhere Cavince, a Kenyan scholar, pointed out to the Global Times.

As of the end of 2021, only a worrying 7.5 percent of the continent's 1.3 billion people are fully vaccinated while a few Western countries are stockpiling far more vaccines than they need and are wasting them.

Statistics show the US and its partners have about 240 million doses of vaccines about to expire. And many of these vaccines being used for donations have been criticized as being props in political showmanship.

Concern and discontent

The COVID-19 Vaccine Procurement Facility, led by the African Vaccine Procurement Trust, the African Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and the WHO, recently issued a statement calling for improvements in the quality of vaccines donated to Africa.

Data from a World Bank study shows that for every month that vaccines are delayed in arriving in Africa, there is a loss of about $13.8 billion in local GDP.

West's 'vaccine nationalism'

Africa's slow pace of vaccination is mainly caused by "vaccine nationalism" of the producing countries that bought much of the global supply, leaving little for Africa, Cavince, the Kenyan scholar on international relations, told the Global Times.

Donation being the major way through which Africa receives vaccines, most donations are a just second thought political decision by developed countries which have seen vaccines nearing expiry shipped to the continent, he said.

His accusations are echoed by many African medical experts and senior officials, who fired at the West's blatant arrogance over the issue.

"We had developed countries that procured these vaccines and hoarded them. At the point they were about to expire, they offered them for donation," condemned Faisal Shuaib, head of Nigeria's National Primary Health Care Development Agency.

Immoral hoarding of vaccines

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa also accused the developed countries of being "unjust and immoral" by hoarding vaccines needed in poorer nations.

"The greed that they demonstrated is something that is quite disappointing indeed, particularly when they say they are our partners," he said, according to the South African government.

The WHO-led vaccine distribution mechanism has disclosed that the majority of the vaccine donations made to date to