The Livestock Productivity and Resilience Support Project (L-PRES) has announced plans to raise the country’s yearly vaccine manufacturing capacity to 850 million doses, up from the existing 120 million doses.

Sanusi Abubakar, L-PRES’s National Project Coordinator (NPC), guarantee the offer  in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Monday.

Abubakar underlined that the National Veterinary Research Institute’s (NVRI) annual production of 120 million doses was drastically inadequate.

The project intends to achieve this goal by increasing the institute’s capability. 

Abubakar noted that this initiative would reduce the country’s high cost of vaccine imports.

Providing an update on the project’s achievements and prospects, he stated that the goal would be realised by upgrading NVRI’s obsolete infrastructure, equipment, and storage capacity.

The NPC identified the institute’s modernisation as part of the project’s institutional system strengthening component, adding that this initiative would make the country self-sufficient in livestock vaccines.

“By achieving this 850 million vaccine doses annually, we don’t need to import vaccines to Nigeria; we will be self-sufficient. We will even export vaccines to other countries, and by doing so, we are reducing capital flight and the dollar issue.

“This will be made possible by making NVRI a Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) standard laboratory, a mandatory quality assurance pre-requisite for any vaccine-producing institution to be eligible for export of its product to the global community,” he said.

Abubakar listed other key components of the project, including enhancing the livestock value chain and renovating livestock markets.

He also revealed that the project had completed the 40-million-dose capacity strategic vaccine storage facility in Sheda, FCT, as part of its institutional system strengthening.

Abubakar assured that the project will construct six additional storage facilities across the country’s geopolitical zones.

“With these facilities, we will have a place to keep our vaccine for onward distribution to our livestock farmers,” he said.

As part of its institutional development efforts, the initiative created a pasture seed multiplication centre at the National Animal Production Research Institute (NAPRI) in Zaria.

According to Abubakar, L-PRES would assist the institute with animal breeding using Assisted Reproduction Technology (ART), including Artificial Insemination (AI), in cattle by 2025.

Source: NAN

Photo Credit: Freepik