NPHCDA boss: Why Nigeria cannot produce COVID-19 vaccines

The Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Faisal Shuaib, says Nigeria cannot produce COVID-19 vaccines at present because of the complex process involved.

He said this at the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 media briefing on Monday.

According to him, producing a vaccine requires huge investment and technologies which are not readily available in Nigeria.

He said, “There are questions around why Nigeria is not producing COVID-19 vaccines. I want to put on record that the process of producing a vaccine is very complex and complicated. It requires massive investment that has not been done for many decades.

“In the 1960s, we use to make yellow fever vaccines in this country. In the 90s, we decided to change analogue ways of making yellow fever vaccines to more recent technologies.

“However, that transfer of technology never happened and that is why we did not continue to make vaccines.”

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo had last Thursday said one of Nigeria’s main priorities now was getting the COVID-19 vaccine. Punch