AstraZeneca vaccines are said to expire this week after four months of its arrival in country this year.
The vaccines arrived mid April and with the expiry dates approaching, a lot of these unused vaccines will be going to waste.
Due to fear and confusion by the populace after widely circulated conspiracy theories, vaccination figures are relatively low with latest stats revealing that only 78,399 people have received the COVID-19 vaccines to date.
PNG had received over 130,000 AstraZeneca vaccines from the first batch, however less than 80,000 people have been vaccinated from this batch.
Dr Morimai Ipai from the NCD Provincial Health Authority who is charged with overlooking vaccination at the Rita Flynn Facility in Port Moresby recently confirmed that most of the AstraZeneca Vaccines that arrived from the COVAX Facility will expire at the end this week.
Dr Ipai urged people not to panic as they are expecting more supplies of the AstraZeneca vaccine soon enough.
“For those of you that received your first dose of AstraZeneca vaccine and you are due for the second dose, no need to panic, you can still take your second dose even after the due date written on the green card.”
At this time, urban clinics in NCD have started carrying out mobile vaccination in their respective electorates and there is also an onsite vaccination happening at Vision City from today until Saturday.
The NCD Provincial Health Authority is administering the AstraZeneca vaccine while the Port Moresby General Hospital is administering the Sinopharm vaccine from China.
