By Felix Onuah, ABUJA Nigeria
Nigeria will destroy around one million expired COVID-19 vaccines, Faisal Shuaib, head of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), said on Monday, adding his agency was working with drug regulator NAFDAC to set a date for their destruction.
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.
Fewer than 4% 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.
Last week, Reuters reported that around one
million COVID-19 vaccines were estimated to have expired in Nigeria last month
without being used.
Still, the World Health Organization'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.
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