Indonesia has extended the shelf life of AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine to nine months, as nearly six million doses it received in donations were in danger of expiring, a health ministry spokesperson told Reuters.

The decision underscores challenges many developing countries face in their slow inoculation campaigns, as vaccines donated by wealthy countries arrive with a relatively short shelf life of just a few months or even weeks.

Siti Nadia Tarmizi, a health ministry spokesperson, told Reuters it had six million doses of vaccines set to expire at the end of February, but only 200,000 of them had expired after it extended the shelf life of the AstraZeneca shot to nine months from six.

Read the full Reuters story here.