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By Daniel Adaji
The Federal Government has stepped up efforts to tackle the circulation of substandard and falsified livestock vaccines, warning that weak regulation and poor-quality animal health products pose serious risks to farmers, public health and national food security.
The Minister of Livestock Development, Idi Maiha, raised the alarm on in a statement on Friday after a stakeholders’ engagement in Abuja, where he outlined sweeping concerns about the state of Nigeria’s veterinary drug market.
He said the sustainability of the livestock sector depends largely on the availability, accessibility and proper use of safe and effective animal health products.
According to the Minister, the veterinary drug space continues to grapple with substandard and falsified products, weak regulatory compliance, uncoordinated importation, and inadequate oversight of manufacturing and distribution channels.
Many livestock farmers, he noted, unknowingly purchase poor-quality drugs, leading to treatment failure, economic losses and avoidable livestock mortality. Beyond that, he warned that misuse of antimicrobials, through wrong dosages, poor storage and unsupervised administration, is accelerating antimicrobial resistance.
“Resistant pathogens do not respect the boundary between animals and humans. This is not only an animal health issue but a public health and environmental concern that must be addressed collectively and urgently,” Maiha said.
He described the safety and quality of veterinary drugs as a national security priority, stressing that disease control programmes for priority livestock diseases such as Peste des Petits Ruminants, Contagious Bovine Pleuropneumonia, rabies and avian influenza depend heavily on the reliability of veterinary products available in the country.
The Minister called for stronger coordination among regulatory agencies, manufacturers, importers, distributors and veterinary professionals to ensure traceability, accountability and quality assurance across the supply chain.
The Chief Veterinary Officer of
Nigeria, Dr. Samuel Anzaku, underscored the strategic role of the National Veterinary Research Institute, whose locally produced vaccines have protected millions of animals. However, he cautioned that Nigeria’s vaccine market is increasingly affected by unvalidated, poorly stored and sometimes counterfeit products entering through weak import channels and informal markets.
He warned that “a bad vaccine is worse than no vaccine,” explaining that ineffective vaccines can trigger outbreaks in supposedly vaccinated animals, erode farmer confidence and fuel antimicrobial misuse.
He advocated a shift from a vaccine market to a vaccine system in which government regulates, the private sector supplies, veterinarians administer, researchers validate and farmers trust the process.
Anzaku noted that Nigeria has commenced research towards local production of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza vaccines through the National Veterinary Research Institute, adding that any future policy decision would be evidence-based and aligned with international standards.
On his part, the Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Institute, Dr. Nicholas Nwankpa, emphasised the need to strengthen community-level vaccination delivery through Community Animal Health Workers, especially in remote and underserved areas.
He called for improved regulatory timelines, digital registration systems and mutual recognition arrangements similar to those adopted in East Africa to enhance vaccine approval efficiency.
Speaking at the dialogue, the Country Representative and Political Director for Propcom+, Dr. Adiya Ode, said the engagement followed two studies examining vaccine demand, supply constraints and policy bottlenecks in the livestock sector. She revealed that national vaccine supply currently meets only a small fraction of demand, making urgent reforms in domestic production and importation processes imperative.
Findings presented at the meeting showed very high annual demand for livestock vaccines, particularly in poultry and small ruminants, while domestic production meets only about a quarter of national requirements during peak periods.
Persistent gaps in supply, distribution and routine vaccination uptake have led to heavy reliance on imports, with most vaccinations still carried out reactively during outbreaks rather than through preventive programmes.
Stakeholders at the forum, including directors of the Federal Ministry of Livestock Development, state directors of veterinary services, private practitioners, researchers and industry players, agreed on the need for coordinated reforms to close system gaps, strengthen cold-chain accountability, improve surveillance and establish a dedicated mechanism to monitor progress.