No fewer than 19,610 expired doses of AstraZeneca vaccines have been destroyed by Malawi government, making the country the first African country to do so.

It follows an advisory from the Africa Centres for Disease Control (Africa CDC) which confirmed that expired jabs were not effective.

On twitter, Malawi';s Nation Online site showed photos of the vaccines being burnt at a hospital incinerator in the capital, Lilongwe.

The expired vaccines were manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII) and had an expiry date of 13 April.