Malawi has burned nearly 20,000 doses of expired AstraZeneca vaccines, defying calls not to do so from the World Health Organisation and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

Malawi’s Health Minister Khumbize Kandodo Chiponda presided over the incineration at Kamuzu Central Hospital in Lilongwe, the capital, according to an AP report.

“We are destroying (these vaccines) because as government policy no expired health commodities are to be used,” she said. “Historically under the expanded immunisation program of Malawi no expired vaccine has ever been used.”

She said the burning of the vaccines will prevent those with a negative perception of inoculations from using the excuse of expired vaccines from getting the shots.