The Federal Government of Nigeria on Wednesday, destroyed over a million COVID-19 Oxford AstraZeneca vaccines after they have passed the expiry date.
The Executive Director, National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr Faisal Shuaib, at Gosa Dumpsite, 2km away from Idu Railway Station, FCT Abuja, said that Nigeria had successfully withdrawn about 1,066,214, doses of expired AstraZeneca vaccines from across the country.
Nigeria joined other African countries, like Malawi, South Sudan, Liberia, Mauritania, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Comoros, and the Democratic Republic of Congo to destroy its expired COVID-19 vaccines.
This has been attributed to a consequence of delays in shipment of vaccine doses, especially of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which meant countries couldn’t roll them out before expiration.
Malawi was the first country to publicly destroy vaccine doses in May. The African Union’s African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team shipped over 900,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine to 13 African nations through donations.
However, the Serum Institute of India, the manufacturer of these doses, extended the shelf-life to July 13 and this generates confusion in the expiration dates.
These Countries have also faced challenges planning and funding for in-country rollouts, as well as vaccine hesitancy, which has made it difficult for countries to quickly administer the jabs into the arms of citizens.
Shuaib said: “As you can see these vaccines have now been deposited by the Abuja Environmental Protection Agency. We have come through in our promise to all Nigerians to be transparent in our delivery of vaccines.
“These vaccines did not expire before we took the decision to withdraw them today is an opportunity for Nigerians to have further faith in our vaccination program. Because we have lived up to the expectation of all Nigerians. We had the option if we were to take the advice of some experts to try and use these vaccines even beyond the label expiry date, but working together with our sister agency, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), who took that decision to destroy these vaccines at the point that they got expired,” he explained.
Shuaib reiterated that this was to further demonstrate the high standards that the agency operates within Nigeria.
“The work that we do is the work that requires trust. It is a sacred trust that has been bestowed on us by the generalizing generality of Nigerians and hold that trust to be true. And we pride that trust very jealously. This is why today, we are destroying these vaccines that have expired”
Shuaib further noted that the heroes of today’s activity were actually the frontline health workers.
“A few months ago, when these vaccines were offered to us, we knew that they had a short shelf life. But we were living in an environment where the supply of COVID-19 vaccines was very scarce.
COVID-19 vaccine: Nigeria destroys over 1 million expired doses
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