Nigeria may get COVID-19 vaccines by next week, says health minister

Osagie Ehanire, minister of health, says Nigeria may receive COVID-19 vaccines by the end of February.

Speaking on Saturday at an inspection tour of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), he 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.”

Ehanire explained that the US, UK, Russia and China that had succeeded in producing the vaccines were now giving licences to other countries to reproduce them.

“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,” the minister said.

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

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

The minister stressed that Nigeria had put all facilities in place to receive the vaccines.