Nigeria likely to be one of African countries to produce Chinese vaccines

China is implementing plans to ensure Nigeria is one of the African countries that will produce China's COVID-19 vaccines on the African continent.

Cui Jianchun, China's ambassador to Nigeria, said on Tuesday that the development of vaccine production on the continent is in line with China's commitments of leading African countries to be self-reliant and to close the immunization gap. Cui made the announcement at a round table in Abuja, capital of Nigeria, according to media.

During the eighth Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation held at the end of November, China announced decision to provide another one billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Africa. Of these 600 million doses will be in the form of donation and the other 400 million doses will be jointly produced in Africa by Chinese and African companies.

Li Xuda, cultural counselor at the Chinese embassy in Nigeria, said that plans are underway to ensure Nigeria is one of the main manufacturers of Chinese vaccines in the West African region. However, he said discussions are at a preliminary stage and it is too early to say when the production will start and what the scale of production for Nigeria will be.