COVID-19: Nigeria May Get Vaccines In 10 Days – Health Minister

Nigeria might get COVID-19 vaccines in the next 10 days.

Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire said this in Lagos on Saturday, while speaking to newsmen at the end of an inspection tour of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi-Araba.

Ehanire said, “We are told that by the end of this month, which is about 10 days from now, we shall get the vaccines. We do not produce the vaccines. They are manufactured abroad in about four or five countries.”

The minister explained that the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Russia and China that had succeeded in producing the vaccines were now giving licences to other countries to reproduce them.

His words, “South Africa has a licence to make the Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccines,while Russia only recently gave India the licence to produce AstraZeneca.”

Ehanire said countries that produced the vaccines had serious challenges with COVID-19 and decided to attend to their needs first, a situation that WHO described as vaccine nationalism.

He noted that while the whole world suffered the pangs of COVID-19, about 75 per cent of vaccines already produced were being used in 10 countries.

The minister noted that the country had put all facilities in place to receive the vaccines.