Nigeria To Discard 1 Million Expired COVID-19 Vaccines

By Tadi Abedje Published: December 14, 2021

Nigeria To Discard 1 Million Expired COVID-19 Vaccines

In Summary

Less than 4% of adults in Africa’s most populous country of at least 200 million are fully vaccinated.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, is set to destroy around 1 million COVID-19 vaccines that expired, according to Reuters.

Faisal Shuaib, who is the leader of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, said Monday they are working with the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control on a date for the dismantling of the vaccines.

Osagie Ehanire, Nigeria’s health minister, said a number of COVID-19 doses donated by well-developed Western countries had a deadline of only weeks to use, which added to the country’s problems of vaccinating its citizens.

According to the World Health Organization, almost 4 million people in Nigeria are fully vaccinated.

Shuaib stated the country had taken in vaccines that had short shelf lives from international donor nations to try to use them quickly, according to Reuters. The goal was to give some protection for Nigerians due to the lack of vaccines.

Due to a presidential committee decision, he said Nigeria won’t accept vaccines that are about to expire.

A week ago, about 1 million COVID-19 vaccines expired in the country last month.

“Vaccine wastage is to be expected in any immunization [program], and in the context of COVID-19 deployment is a global phenomenon,” the WHO told Reuters.

On Thursday, WHO’s vaccine director Kate O’Brien said the amount of wasted doses is smaller in countries getting does through COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access than in many high-income countries.