The Federal Government has destroyed 1,066,214 doses of expired AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines.
The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), with the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) and the Abuja Environmental Protection Agency (AEPA) destroyed the expired drugs on Tuesday.
The vaccines were destroyed at the Gosa Dumping site in Abuja.
This batch is said to be part of the 2,594,100 vaccine doses received on the 11th and 29th of October of which only 1,527,886 were administered.
The batches of the vaccine destroyed expired in November.
At the destruction site, the NPHCDA Executive Director/Chief Executive Officer, Dr Faisal Shuaib, commended health workers on their efforts to help administer the vaccines, describing them as the “heroes of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign because they worked round the clock to make sure the vaccines were used maximally”.
Earlier in December, the NPHCDA had announced that it would destroy expired COVID-19 vaccines after they had been pulled from circulation.
Authorities also acknowledged that logistics and bottlenecks involved in clearing the vaccines also led to a loss of valuable time in distributing the vaccines across the country.
