Nigeria destroys 1 million expired doses of Astrazeneca COVID-19 vaccine

Nigeria has destroyed over a million doses of expired AstraZeneca vaccines to reassure a worried public that they have been removed from circulation.

The devastation occurred on Wednesday, more than a week after health officials announced that some COVID-19 doses supplied by wealthy Western countries had a shelf life of only a few weeks, leaving only a few weeks to deliver the vaccines.

On December 7, the Reuters news agency reported that around one million COVID-19 vaccinations had expired in Nigeria without being used in November.

As reporters and health officials looked on, a bulldozer crushed AstraZeneca shots that were packaged in cardboard boxes and plastic at a dumpsite in Abuja.

As inoculation rates trail richer countries, governments throughout the continent of more than one billion people have pushed for additional vaccine delivery.

Lower vaccination levels increase the chance of COVID-19 infection and death, particularly as new, quickly forms such as Omicron arise.

Nigeria will no longer accept vaccines with a short shelf life, according to Health Minister Osagie Ehanire, citing a presidential committee decision.

As of December 19, the World Health Organization reported that 12,971,729 vaccine doses have been delivered in Nigeria.

Since the COVID-19 began, 227,378 COVID-19 cases and 2,989 deaths have been reported in Africa's most populous country, which has a population of over 200 million people.

Nigeria has to increase its vaccination programme, which is currently at 100,000 doses per day, to reach its goal of inoculating more than half of its people by the end of next year, according to health experts.

Nigeria, like many other African countries, has recently experienced a boom in vaccine supplies, highlighting other difficulties such as distribution and residents' reluctance to be immunised.