Last checked at 
(New throughout, adds denials by cities)
BRASILIA, July 2 (Reuters) - Municipalities across Brazil on
Friday denied a newspaper report that said health ministry data
showed cities administered at least 26,000 expired AstraZeneca
COVID-19 vaccine shots.
The southern city of Maringá, cited in the Folha de S.Paulo
story as being the municipality to have used the most expired
shots (over 3,500), denied the allegation, saying the doses only
appeared to have expired on public databases due to a delay in
the registration of new data in the Health Ministry system.
"There were no expired vaccine doses in Maringá, but there
was an error in the system of (public health network) SUS," said
the city's Health Secretary Marcelo Puzzi in a statement. Other
cities blamed the confusion on the same data issue.
Local governments for the cities of São Paulo, Juiz de Fora
and Belo Horizonte, which were also mentioned in the Folha
story, issued statements denying having given out-of-date shots.
Brazil's vaccine rollout has faced widespread criticism. The
government was slow to buy vaccines, and is now dealing with an
alleged corruption scandal surrounding its procurement efforts.
Expired vaccine doses can be less effective. In Africa, a
number of countries have found themselves with batches that have
passed their shelf life sparking a debate over extending expiry
dates. In May, Malawi destroyed nearly 20,000 doses that had
expired.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has so far declined to
take a vaccine and has sowed doubts about inoculations, pushed
unproven miracle cures and underplayed the severity of a
pandemic that has killed over a half a million Brazilians.
According to the report, the expired vaccines came from
batches imported from India by the public Fiocruz biomedical
institute, or acquired through the Pan American Health
Organization (PAHO).
Neither the Health Ministry, Fiocruz nor PAHO immediately
responded to requests for comment. The Serum Institute of India,
which made the shots, also did not immediately reply.
The AstraZeneca vaccine is one of the two dominant COVID-19
shots in Brazil, alongside China's CoronaVac.
(Reporting by Ricardo Brito; additional reporting by Stephen
Eisenhammer; writing by Pedro Fonseca and Gabriel Stargardter;
Editing by Aurora Ellis and David Gregorio)
