COVID-19: WHO Disqualifies Nigeria From Global Bid For Pfizer-Biontech Vaccine

The World Health Organisation-led COVAX global initiative has failed to shortlist Nigeria for the Pfizer vaccines.

This followed the country’s inability to meet the standard requirement of being able to store the vaccines at the required -70 degrees Celsius.

The Nigerian Government had stated that it was expected to receive 100,000 doses through the COVAX initiative, which was set up to ensure rapid and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines for all countries, regardless of income level.

Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the Director, WHO, African Region, while speaking at a virtual press conference, said only four African countries were shortlisted for the Pfizer vaccine out of the 13 that applied.

According to Moeti, WHO could not risk the Pfizer vaccines being wasted.

She said, “Around 320,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine have been allocated to four African countries – Cape Verde, Rwanda, South Africa and Tunisia.

This vaccine has received WHO Emergency Use Listing but requires countries to be able to store and distribute doses at minus 70 degrees Celsius.

Meanwhile, Prof Babatunde Salako, the Director-General of the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research, had said that there is not enough space at the moment to store the vaccines at that temperature.

But the Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr Faisal Shuaib, had described the report as fake, saying Nigeria had the capacity to store the vaccines and had taken journalists on a tour of its facility in Abuja.