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The first batch of COVID vaccines touched down in South Africa in February 2021. Health workers were the first to get a jab under the Sisonke study. But even before the country had bought any jabs, our reporters were writing about the logistics and the politics of the project. If you want to know how well the vaccines work, how the different jabs compare or what it takes to create a vaccine from research, to regulation, to rollout, you’re at the right place.

HomeSpecial ReportsCOVID-19 vaccines From the bin to the burn: How COVID vaccines are destroyed

[WATCH] From the bin to the burn: How COVID vaccines are destroyed

  • Clinics and hospitals have a strict, colour-coded system to organise different types of waste before a company comes to collect it. 
  • When vaccines expire, they’re put in green bins and quarantined away from other waste such as blood or tissue. 
  • It doesn’t cost much to destroy vaccines. The bigger issue is the money wasted on purchasing the jabs and the high price tag that comes with falling very ill with COVID when it could have been prevented.

Follow the final days of an expired COVID vaccine as they await their turn in the incinerator.
  • Read the full script here.

Yolanda Mdzeke is a multimedia reporter at Bhekisisa.

Zano Kunene is a health journalist at Bhekisisa.

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