Nigeria faces a fresh hurdle in its bid to immunize her citizens with the COVID-19 vaccines, as the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research says there is not enough space at the moment to store the Pfizer vaccines.
The Director-General of NIMR, Prof. Babatunde Salako, told The PUNCH on Saturday that Nigeria has exhausted her freezers meant to store the vaccines.
First batch of the vaccines are expected to arrive next week.
Salako revealed that Nigeria had freezers in different parts of the country to store the Pfizer vaccines at -70 degrees centigrade.
He, however, said most of these freezers were occupied and were storing medical supplies which also need to be stored at a low temperature.
Salako said, “Our facilities can hold Pfizer vaccines at -70 degrees but we don’t have enough of such freezers and the ones we have are even full at the moment. We even just got one that we have yet to install but how many samples can it even hold?
“Even if we rearrange things, I doubt if we can store more than a few hundred or thousands.”
