Nigeria is working on Covid-19 vaccine, president says

CNN

Nigeria is working to develop a Covid-19 vaccine, President Muhammadu Buhari said in a televised interview on Thursday, as the country battles growing cases of the virus.

Health experts say Nigeria needs to triple its vaccination drive from just over 100,000 doses a day to meet its target of inoculating more than half its population by the end of next year.

The West African country has been exploring options to acquire or purchase vaccines through the COVAX facility to enable it to inoculate at least 70% of its population.

Some of the vaccine donations it received had a shelf life that left only weeks to administer the shots. Nigeria destroyed more than 1 million expired vaccines last month.

“We are working very hard with the ministry of health to develop vaccines,” Buhari said on state television. “We shouldn’t make noise about it until we succeed.”

Speaking to CNN on Friday, Nigeria’s minister of state for health, Dr. Olorunnimbe Mamora, said the country was working to establish a vaccine-manufacturing hub within two or three years. But this would depend on the availability of funds, he stated.

“Vaccine manufacturing is not done in a jiffy. Yesterday (Thursday), we had engagements with some of our international development partners and funding partners towards developing our vaccine manufacturing hub. It’s a joint venture project between the federal government and an indigenous pharmaceutical company,” Mamora told CNN.