Vaccine nationalism and the access of low-income countries to COVID-19 vaccines: The Nigerian experience

Abstract

The outbreak of infectious diseases in the last century has necessitated the development of vaccines, and arrangement for access to vaccines to overcome the outbreak. The outbreak of COVID - 19 in December of 2019 put the entire international community on a clock to develop a vaccine and to make same available to as many individuals as possible across the world within the shortest possible time, regardless of where they live. The development of vaccines requires important and expensive human capital, infrastructure for manufacturing, transportation, and storage such as reliable cold chains and power grids. These are facilities which come easily to developed nations but are unavailable or least available to developing and underdeveloped countries. This paper reviews Nigeria’s vaccine manufacture capacity, steps being taken by the country to access vaccines manufactured abroad and its COVID - 19 vaccination campaign; discusses the challenges posed by the lack of capacity to manufacture vaccines locally; paucity of funds to purchase vaccines manufactured abroad and the impact of multilateral and bilateral arrangements on these processes. The paper makes recommendations on actions the country and other African countries can take to mitigate or remove these challenges posed and ensure vaccine independence, thereby improving preparedness for future pandemics.