Video of Expired Vaccine Doses Being Destroyed in Nigeria Is Misleading
The Claim
The video shows Nigerian authorities destroying one million COVID-19 vaccine doses recently.
News posted on
Emerging story
A video showing a truck throwing boxes at a landfill has gone viral. Users who shared the video claimed it showed Nigerian authorities destroying one million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. Users also praised the government for being "wiser" in destroying the doses.
Misbar’s Analysis
Our team has investigated the claim and found it to be misleading. The video was filmed in 2021, and it has been reshared in a misleading context.
We found that the video was part of a Bloomberg report and was published on Twitter last December 2021 with a caption reading: "Nigerian authorities destroyed 1 066 214 expired doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine. The country says it will no longer accept donated COVID vaccines with short shelf lives from Western Nations."
Using keywords, we found that, according to reports, in December 2021, the Nigerian authorities destroyed more than a million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine after they expired “in a bid to assure a wary public that they have been taken out of circulation.”
The head of Nigeria's National Primary Health Care Development Agency stated that the destroyed doses were donated by developed countries and were about to expire.
