The Federal Government in collaboration with National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, (NAFDAC) and the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) has smashed to a dumpsite 1,066,214 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
From the 2,594,100 doses of Vaccines acquired on the 11th and 29th October of 2021, 1,527,886 were said to have been utilized and others that got expired around November were destroyed and moved to Gosa dumping site close to Idu railway at Abuja.
In a statement of the Director-General of NAFDAC, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, the resolution to smash the doses of the vaccines was determined by many testing protocols that were observed and it became a necessity to smash them to protect citizens from being hurt.
According to the Executive Secretary of NPHCDA, Dr Faisal Shuaib, “the vaccines came with a short life span, some as short as 2 weeks to expiration. Its really unfortunate he said”.
He Continued:
“While Nigeria appreciates the gesture of the donors, it was not in the interest of the country that vaccines with a short lifespan are sent to it and only about 10 million Nigerians have been vaccinated against COVID-19”.
Mr Shuaib, though expressed optimism that Nigeria will be able to meet its target of vaccinating 110 million Nigerians.
“Meanwhile, as the country struggles to scale up the speed of vaccination in the wake of a 4th wave of the virus, the infection rate appears to be witnessing a spike.
On Tuesday, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) confirmed 2,123 new COVID-19 infections – the highest daily case tally in the country since January”
