Nigeria has encountered huge wastage as the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, (NAFDAC) and the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) coordinated the destruction of 1,066,214 doses of expired AstraZeneca vaccine.
The 1,066,214 doses were said to be part of the 2,594,100 doses of vaccines received in the country on October 11 and 29, 2021. The government said that 1,527,886 have been administered to people.
The destroyed vaccines were said to have expired in November.
The destruction took place at the Gosa Dumping site, about 2 kilometers from the Idu Railway Station, Abuja.
The Director-General of NAFDAC, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, explained that the vaccine was destroyed after several testing processes were conducted to ascertain the expiration date. The destruction, she said, was done to protect Nigerians from being harmed.
The Executive Secretary of NPHCDA, Dr. Faisal Shuaib, noted that the vaccines arrived Nigeria with a short life span, some as short as two weeks to expiration. The Executive Secretary stated that the situation was unfortunate, but did not explain why the Nigerian government accepted them in the first instance.
The Executive Director said that only about 10 million Nigerians have been vaccinated against COVID-19.
He was confident that Nigeria will meet its target of vaccinating 110 million persons.
However, the mounting resistance to covid vaccine in the country as in other parts of the world has continued. More citizens and social groups are springing up daily questioning the hidden agenda of the government on vaccine mandate. The revelation that the Nigerian government took stock of expired vaccines may increase the opposition to covid vaccine in the country as fear of human safety is expected to increase.