The Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire has said that
local production of COVID-19 vaccines cannot start now in Nigeria.
Ehanire made this known in Abuja at the Presidential
Steering Committee (PSC) briefing, explaining why local production of COVID-19
vaccines cannot start in the country at the moment as the world continues to
fight vaccines nationalism.
The minister attributed the delay to the government’s
inability to procure the required technology for production.
He said that the N10 billion earmarked by the National
Assembly for that purpose is intact.
According to him, the Federal Government was still in talks
with local vaccine firm Bio-Vaccine Nigeria Limited.
He said, “Nigeria is a 49 per cent shareholder in a company
called Bio-Vaccine Nigeria Limited, and the bio-vaccine is a revival of the
former vaccine plants that the Federal Government used to have, in which the
private sector was invited to join and form a special purpose vehicle – a
company called Bio-Vaccine.
”Now the joint venture was stalled because of the COVID-19
outbreak – when there was a lockdown and when nothing could move.
”So there is a lot of delay by the company in getting
themselves on their feet.
“The aspiration to produce vaccines has not been fulfilled.
It is not that it is abandoned.
”We are working on it and I have spoken with one of the
members of the board of management of the bio-vaccine and we are working on
getting that technology to both produce routine vaccines and also COVID-19
vaccines under licence and importation of the technology and partnership for
it.”
Recall that the Ministry of Finance released N10 billion to
support COVID-19 vaccine production in the country.
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