Covid-19: Nigeria forced to destroy more than a million expired vaccines

“When these vaccines were first introduced to us, we knew they had a short shelf life, but we lived in an environment where vaccine supplies were very scarce.”, explained the director of the national agency in charge of immunization programs, Dr Faisal Shuaib.

At the moment, “the vaccines were not available because of nationalism in vaccines, developed countries got these vaccines and then stored them, then when they were about to expire, offered them to us “, he denounced.

The most populous country in Africa has so far fully vaccinated some 4 million people, or less than 3% of the adult population, a far cry from the government’s goal of vaccinating 112 million people by the end of 2022.

Health authorities announced Monday that the country is facing a fourth wave of Covid-19, and called for “strict” compliance with health rules during the holiday season. “Nigeria has seen a 500% increase in the number of confirmed cases in the past two weeks across the country due to the Delta and Omicron variants,” according to a statement from the Nigerian Center for Disease Control (NCDC).