5 Million Pounds Worth Of COVID-19 Vaccine Wasted, Three People Detained By The Egyptian Government

Illustration vaksin COVID-19. (Wikimedia Commons/Agenzia Brasília)

JAKARTA - Egypt's public prosecutor announced on Sunday it had ordered the arrest of three people, after thousands of unused COVID-19 vaccines were found dumped along waterways.

The vaccine was originally allocated to the health directorate in the city of Munya, about 220 km (137 miles) south of Cairo, where 18,400 vaccine packages valued at more than 5 million Egyptian pounds or about US$319 thousand are known to be missing.

Citing Reuters Oct. 11, an inventory found nearly 5,000 vaccine packages at the depot were damaged by storage at inappropriate temperatures, the prosecution statement added.

Although it did not mention the number of doses or types of vaccines, the official statement previously said that the COVID-19 vaccine was made by Sinopharm China.

Images posted on social media show piles of white boxes strewn along the edge of a waterway in Bani Mazar province, north of Minya.

The discarded vaccine went missing after it was given by an authorized pharmacist to the driver of a Health Ministry vehicle, for delivery to the Minya directorate, prosecutors said.

Initial investigations held that the pharmacist and an official at the depot directorate were responsible for gross negligence, and they were ordered to be detained for joint investigation with the driver after providing contradictory information, the statement said.

It is known, the Egyptian government is struggling to meet the target of providing a COVID-19 vaccine for its 40 million people by the end of the year, out of a total population of 100 million in the country.

However, obstacles are not easy to face in meeting the vaccination target, due to delays in supply and public doubts about the COVID-19 vaccine.