Nigeria’s Presidential Committee embargoes Acceptance of Short Shelf Life Vaccines From Rich Western Nations, to destroy expire vaccines
Around one million Covid-19 short shelf life vaccine doses donated to Nigeria by rich Western countries have now expired and they are being assembled to be destroyed.
Platforms Africa reports that head of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Faisal Shuaib, who said this on Monday, added Nigeria would no longer accept vaccines with a short shelf life, citing a presidential committee decision.
Nigeria’s health minister Osagie Ehanire said last week some Covid-19 doses donated by rich Western countries had a remaining shelf life of only weeks, adding to the country’s challenges in vaccinating its people.
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Fewer than 4 percent of adults in Africa’s most populous nation of over 200 million have been fully vaccinated.
Shuaib said the country had been accepting vaccines with short shelf lives from international donor nations in an attempt to use them quickly and provide some level of protection for Nigerian due to vaccine scarcity in the past.
Shuaib said Nigeria will no longer accept vaccines with a short shelf life, citing a presidential committee decision.
Around one million Covid-19 vaccines were estimated to have expired in Nigeria last month without being used.
Still, the World Health Organisation’s vaccine director Kate O’Brien said in a briefing on Thursday the proportion of wasted doses is smaller in countries receiving doses through Covax than in many high-income countries.
