The Prime Minister, Taur Matan Ruak, after having had information, on August 5th, 2021, about some vaccines that degraded at the Guido Valadares National Hospital (HNGV), has ordered the General Inspector of the State to start an audit process on this situation, in order to try to identify the causes of this incident.

According to the preliminary information available, between June 10th and 15th, due to power instability problems at the HNGV, the AstraZeneca vaccine storage refrigeration system was affected, causing irregularity in the refrigerator temperatures.

Thus, according to the conclusions and recommendations of the National Immunization Technical Advisory Group of Timor-Leste (NITAG-TL), in conjunction with the WHO, the vaccines that were administered between June 10th and 15th, at the HNGV, are considered null or invalid, and therefore it is clearly recommended that those affected should receive a new dose of the vaccine.

The Head of Government strongly regretted the incident, and apologised to the health professionals and users who received vaccines between June 10th and 15th, at the HNGV, and warned the Ministry of Health to be more careful in its management, so that episodes like this are not repeated in the future.