By our reporter| The federal government on Tuesday said Nigeria will receive 41,282,770 doses of Oxford/Astrazeneca, Pfizer-Bio-N Tech, and Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines between July and September.
The Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Faisal Shuaib, who made the disclosure at a press briefing, said the vaccines were donated by the COVAX facility, United States Government, and the African Union Commission.
According to him, the federal government will commence the second phase of the COVID-19 vaccination programme in the next few weeks.
Shuaib said, “We have received communication for the delivery of the following vaccine shipments in the coming months:
-3,924,000 doses of Oxford/AstraZeneca/Moderna by end of July or early August 2021 from the COVAX facility.
-3,930,910 doses of Pfizer-Bio-N Tech/Moderna COVID-19 vaccine in August from the COVAX facility donated by the United States Government.
-3,577,860 doses of Pfizer-Bio-N Tech COVID-19 vaccine in Q3 from the COVAX facility.
29,850,000 doses of Johnson & Johnson (Jassen) COVID-19 vaccine by the end of September, that will arrive in batches from the African Union Commission.
Shuaib further revealed that during the first phase, the country successfully vaccinated 3,938,945 eligible persons across 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), representing 98 per cent utilization of the 4,024,000 doses of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine it received from COVAX facility in March 2021.
“This comprises of 2,534,205 people who have been vaccinated for first dose, and 1,404,205 who have received their second dose of the vaccine,” he said.
According to him, in the course of the vaccination, the country recorded 14,550 cases of mild/moderate Adverse Event Following Immunization (AEFI), with only 148 cases considered to be severe.
He added that there was no record of death associated with COVID-19 vaccination so far.
He said the federal government has procured 60 units of U701 ultra cold chain equipment, with about 37 of them already deployed to all the 36 states and FCT in preparation to receive COVID-19 vaccines that would require ultra-cold temperature of below 40 to 85 degrees.”
Shuaib added that with the detection of the Delta Variant of COVID-19 in Nigeria, it is important that Nigerians continue to observe non-pharmaceutical or public health measures such as wearing of facemasks, social distancing, and hand hygiene in order to curb the transmission of the disease.
Walter Kazadi, World Health Organization country representative, said variants are currently winning the race against vaccines because of inequitable vaccine production and distribution.
Peter Hawkins, United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) country representative, said the pandemic is still going on, adding that measures must be taken to prevent its further expansion, by ensuring that the next phase of the vaccination is successful.
Meanwhile, the country has recorded a fresh spike of COVID-19 cases.
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) in its report on Monday night, disclosed that 161 new cases were reported across the country.
Lagos State, which still remains the epicenter of the virus in Nigeria, recorded 153 new cases, while Gombe recorded two, Oyo and Rivers one each and the FCT four cases respectively.
This now brings the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 168,713.
164,476 have recovered, while 2,124 have unfortunately died.
This comes days after the NCDC said it had detected the Delta COVID-19 variant in the country.
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