Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday said the country is currently working to develop a Covid-19 vaccine, reported Reuters.
Health experts have said Nigeria requires to boost its rate of vaccination nearly three times 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.
The Nigerian government has been trying to acquire or purchase vaccines through the COVAX facility to inoculate at least 70% of its population against the coronavirus.
The West African country had previously received vaccines in donation from several developed countries which had a shelf life that left only weeks to administer the shots. Last month, the health authorities destroyed more than one million expired doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
“We are working very hard with the ministry of health to develop vaccines,” Buhari said on state television.
Nigerian health authorities have reported 245,404 COVID-19 cases so far including 3,058 deaths.
President Buhari said his administration is appealing Nigerians to get inoculated. Only less than 4% of Africa’s most populous nation of over 200 million have been fully vaccinated so far.
In related news, the World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday said the Omicron coronavirus variant should not be deemed as mild as the variant is killing people across the globe.
The WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said hospitals are being overwhelmed as large numbers of people are getting infected with the new variant. He said Omicron, just like previous variants, is hospitalizing and killing people.
“While Omicron does appear to be less severe compared to Delta, especially in those vaccinated, it does not mean it should be categorized as mild,” Tedros told a press conference.
He said the WHO aims to get 70 percent of the population jabbed in every country by mid-2022.
