The federal government has debunked media allegations indicating expiration of some Covid-19 vaccines.
A Press statement signed by the Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehinare reads: Nigeria has, of late enjoyed the generosity of several, mainly European countries, who have offered us doses of Covid-19 vaccines out of their stockpiles, free of charge, through COVAX or AVAT facility.
These donations are always acknowledged and thankfully received: however, some of them had residual shelf lives of only few months that left us very short time, some just weeks, to use them, after deduction of time to transport, clear, distribute and deliver to users. If such vaccines arrive back-to-back or are many, logistic bottlenecks occasionally arise.
Ehinare noted that even when the federal government appreciate the gesture of the donor’s, it also communicate the challenge of short shelf lives, whereupon some manufacturers extend the vaccine shelf life by 3 months, a practice that, is accepted by experts, but declined by the Federal Ministry of Health especially as Nigeria does not dispense vaccines with a validity extended beyond labelled expiry date.
He stated that donation of surplus Covid-19 vaccines with expiring shelf lives to Developing Countries has been a matter of international discussion as developing countries like Nigeria accept them because they close our critical vaccine supply gaps and, being free, save us scarce foreign exchange procurement cost. .
“Donors also recognize a need to give away unused vaccines, before they expire in their own stock, but they need to begin the process early enough and create a well-oiled pathway for prompt shipment and distribution through the COVAX and AVAT facilities, to reduce risk of expiration. With better coordination, vaccines need not expire in the stock of Donors or Recipients”.
Nigeria has utilized most of the over 10m short-shelf-life doses of Covid-19 vaccines so far supplied to us, in good time, and saved N16.4B or more than $40m in foreign exchange,he added.
The vaccines that expired had been withdrawn before then, and will be destroyed accordingly, by NAFDAC
The minister noted that the long term measure to prevent such incident is for Nigeria to produce its own vaccines that will have at least 12 months expiration timeframe,hence the commitment of the Federal Ministry of Health in collaborating with stakeholders to fast-track the establishment of indigenous vaccine manufacturing capacity on the country.
