The Nigerian health authorities on Friday issued a warning against fake coronavirus vaccines in the country, reported Africa News.
Nigeria’s National Agency for Food Drug and Administration Control (NAFDAC) has urged the public to be aware of fake coronavirus vaccines reported to be in circulation in the country.
“There are reports of fake vaccines in Nigeria,” Mojisola Adeyeye, the Director-General of Nigeria’s National Agency for Food Drug and Administration Control (NAFDAC), said on Friday.
Adeyeye said that fake vaccines can cause Covid-like illnesses or other serious diseases that could be life-threatening.
He went on to confirm that no vaccine had yet been approved by the body.
The warning from the Nigerian government comes as 10 million real doses of the coronavirus vaccines are expected to arrive in the country in March.
It currently remains unclear whether the vaccine batch would be financed by the African Union (AU) or as part of COVAX, which links the World Health Organization (WHO) with various private partners to work for collective procurement and equitable distribution to all the countries.
The Nigerian government is planning to vaccinate 40 percent of the country’s population in 2021. But the challenges of transporting and storing vaccines for many millions of people are enormous in a country where there is no adequate hospital facility.
Nigeria, which is Africa’s most populous nation, has officially reported some 107,000 COVID-19 cases with more than 1,400 deaths. The real toll is expected to be much higher as the number of tests being conducted in the country is low.
A new variant strain of coronavirus has been discovered in recent months that have led to a rapid increase in the number of infections.
The number of coronavirus cases has risen sharply since the end of November. The death rate has also increased. On Thursday, the country reported 23 fatalities, the highest daily death toll since the start of the pandemic.
