He unplugged a refrigerator to charge his cell phone and spoiled 1,000 doses of Sputnik

A clinic in Kyrgyzstan had to throw away nearly 1,000 doses of the Sputnik V covid-19 vaccine, after a person unplugged the refrigerator where it was stored to charge their phone, authorities said.

The now unnecessary vaccines were part of a batch of 20,000 doses that Russia delivered as humanitarian aid to this poor Central Asian country.

The vaccination campaign started in March and Russian injections are more popular than Chinese injections from Sinopharm.

The incident took place in April at a public clinic in Bishkek, but was not made public until this week, drawing criticism from authorities.

According to the Minister of Health, Alimkadyr Beyshenaliyev, a maintenance worker could have been responsible for the error as he searched for an outlet to charge his cell phone.

“If the fault lies with one of the employees, the housekeeper or someone else, the clinic will have to answer financially,” he told reporters.
In April, the minister appeared on television to promote the root of a plant – known to be highly toxic to humans – as a supposed miracle cure for COVID-19, amid a new wave of infections .

He even took a few sips of the remedy in front of reporters, which contains extracts from aconite root, a mountain plant that contains toxins that are deadly to humans but is used in traditional medicine.

Kyrgyzstan is experiencing a third wave of covid-19 and officially recorded more than 100,000 cases and 1,735 deaths on Friday, for a population of 6.5 million people.