Canada is to throw out almost 14 million doses of AstraZeneca’s COVID vaccine after it struggled to find a country that would accept them.

Canada last year unveiled plans to donate around 17.7 million doses of the AstraZeneca Covid jab to other countries, after concerns over the safety of the vaccine prompted it to prioritise those made by BioNTech and Moderna. It had initially ordered 20 million AstraZeneca doses, although largely stopped using them amid questions over its potential link to rare blood clots.

The destruction of millions of AstraZeneca anti-COVID vaccines follows Nigeria’s destruction of more than 1 million expired doses of the same vaccine in December. Credit:AP

However, Canadian health officials have now said that 13.6 million of the doses it was planning to donate – or 77 per cent – had now expired and would need to be thrown away.

A spokesman for Health Canada said: “Due to limited demand for the vaccine and recipient country challenges with distribution and absorption, they were not accepted.” Canada sent around 4.8 million AstraZeneca doses to other countries, including islands in the Caribbean and countries in South America.

It has also donated another 4.1 million of the vaccine doses using the Covax scheme, by which countries provide funds to help give vaccines to lower-income countries.

In total, around 1.56 billion doses of COVID vaccine have been shipped under the Covax scheme to 146 countries.

The AstraZeneca vaccine.Credit:AP

However many low-income countries are still lagging on vaccine rollout, with just 12 per cent of people living in them fully vaccinated.

In the UK, around 73 per cent of the population has received two jabs, while globally the figure stands at just over 20 per cent.

Western countries have moved towards using Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, particularly for booster rollouts, after placing limits on who is able to receive AstraZeneca vaccines in the wake of blood clot concerns last year.

In Australia, there was a backlash against the AstraZeneca vaccine last year after medical advice recommended against its use for under 60s.

During the first rollout last April, Britain issued guidance for people under 30 to be offered an alternative.

Currently, the majority of the vaccines given in the UK are either Pfizer or Moderna. Of the 38.9 million booster jabs given in the country until June 15, some 30.5 million were Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, while 9.3 million were Moderna, and 57,700 were AstraZeneca.

The Telegraph, London

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