The President of Nigeria, Mohammadu Buhari, disclosed during a televised interview on Thursday that Nigeria is working to develop a COVID-19 vaccine.
This became more important as the country battles growing cases of the virus.
Health experts stated that 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.
It received vaccine donations some of which had a shelf life that left only weeks to administer the shots. Nigeria destroyed more than one million expired vaccines last month. read more
“We are working very hard with the ministry of health to develop vaccines. We shouldn’t make noise about it until we succeed,” Buhari said.
Nigeria, which has not tested widely for COVID-19, has recorded 245,404 COVID-19 cases and 3,058 deaths since the pandemic started.
Buhari said his administration is encouraging Nigerians to get vaccinated. Fewer than 4% of adults in Africa’s most populous nation of over 200 million have been fully vaccinated.
