Nigeria Discards Over 1Mln Expired AstraZeneca COVID-19 Shots - Reports

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Nigeria Discards Over 1Mln Expired AstraZeneca COVID-19 Shots - Reports

Nigeria has discarded more than 1 million expired AstraZeneca vaccine doses, national media said on Wednesday, citing the National Primary Health Care Development Agency

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 22nd December, 2021) Nigeria has discarded more than 1 million expired AstraZeneca vaccine doses, national media said on Wednesday, citing the National Primary Health Care Development Agency.

A total of 1,066,214 shots were disposed of at the Gosa Dumping site in the capital of Abuja earlier in the day, Channels Television said.

The vaccines had been delivered to Nigeria on October 11 and 29, 2021 as part of a 2.6 million batch of shots that expired in November. Over 1.5 million shots were destroyed earlier due to their short lifespan, some as short as two weeks to expiration, according to Dr.

Faisal Shuaib, the agency's executive secretary.

Shuaib also expressed his consternation that only about 10 million Nigerians are vaccinated, and mentioned that it is not in the interest of the country that vaccines with a short lifespan are sent to it.

Meanwhile, Nigeria is facing a surge in daily coronavirus infections. The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control confirmed 2,123 new cases on Tuesday - the highest daily case rate in the country since January.