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Nigeria destroys a million vaccines donated, about to expire, several rich countries

2021-12-22T20:13:01.241Z


The country accepted the doses delivered by Western states even though their expiration was imminent due to a shortage of injectables.


A truck unloads expired AstraZeneca vaccines at the Abuja landfill, Nigeria. KOLA SULAIMON (AFP)

Nigeria destroyed more than a million doses of expired AstraZeneca vaccines on Wednesday in an attempt to assure a concerned population that they had been withdrawn from circulation. The decision to get rid of them came more than a week after health authorities revealed that some injectables donated by wealthy Western nations expired in a few weeks. Reuters reported on December 7 that an estimated one million doses had expired in Nigeria in November without being used. The destruction occurred at an Abuja landfill, where an excavator crushed AstraZeneca injectables packaged in cardboard and plastic boxes before the eyes of sanitarians, journalists and officials.

The executive director of the National Agency for the Development of Primary Care, Faisal Shuaib, assured the media that it had been the shortage of supplies on the continent that had forced Nigeria to accept the doses, despite knowing that they had a shelf life. short.

“We have successfully recalled 1,066,214 expired AstraZeneca doses.

We have kept our promise to be transparent with Nigerians.

Today's destruction is an opportunity for Nigerians to trust our vaccination program, ”Shuaib stated.

Some of the expired AstraZeneca vials that Nigeria has destroyed.

KOLA SULAIMON (AFP)

Governments on the African continent, with a population of more than a billion people, have pushed for more vaccines to be delivered as inoculation rates lag behind richer regions. These low levels increase the risk of increased infections and deaths, especially as new, rapidly spreading variants emerge as is occurring with omicron. Health Minister Osagie Ehanire has assured that Nigeria will no longer accept more vaccines with a short expiration date. According to the WHO, 12,971,729 doses of vaccines have been administered in Nigeria as of December 19.

Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, with a population of over 200 million people and has recorded 227,378 COVID-19 cases and 2,989 deaths since the pandemic began.

Health experts say the country needs to triple its vaccination campaign from just over 100,000 doses a day to reach its goal of inoculating more than half its population by the end of next year.

Recently, like other African countries, Nigeria has experienced an increase in the supply of vaccines, which has revealed that there are other problems related to the distribution and the doubts of citizens when it comes to being vaccinated.


Source: elparis

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