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40 Million Doses Of Covid-19 Vaccine To Arrive In September—FG

Ebuka Daniel

The Federal Government has disclosed plans to begin the second phase of the covid-19 vaccination program across the country.

This was announced by the Executive Director of the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Faisal Shuaib during a press briefing in Abuja on Tuesday.

According to him, the country has officially ended the first phase of its strategic COVID-19 vaccination plan and is now preparing to commence the second phase in the next few weeks.

“Nigeria has successfully vaccinated 3,938,945 eligible persons across 36 States and FCT, representing 98 percent 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.

“In the course of this exercise, the country recorded 14,550 cases of mild/moderate Adverse Event Following Immunization (AEFI), with only 148 cases considered to be severe. However, we did not record any case of death associated with COVID-19 vaccination.

“Accordingly, the country has officially ended the first phase of its strategic COVID-19 vaccination plan and is now preparing to commence the second phase in the next few weeks,” he said.

According to him, the government in preparation to commence the second phase has begun communication with suppliers for the delivery of 3,924,000 doses of Oxford/AstraZeneca by end of July or early August 2021 from the COVAX facility.

Other consignment expected by the government includes; 3,930,910 doses of Pfizer-Bio-N Tech 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.

“We are making every effort and are confident that, Nigeria will be able to make more significant utilization of the vaccines, that would be supplied to the country.

“The National Primary Health Care Development Agency is putting in place all necessary logistics for storage, distribution, security, and accountability for the range of vaccines we are expecting.

“To this end, the Federal Government of Nigeria has procured 60 units of U701 ultra cold chain equipment, and as we speak, about 37 of them have been deployed to all the 36 States and FCT in preparation to receive all COVID-19 vaccines that would require ultra-cold temperature of below 40 to 85 degrees,” he said.

He, therefore, stated that individuals of age 18 years and above, pregnant and lactating women are eligible to take COVID-19 vaccine.

“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 facemask, social distancing and hand hygiene in order to curb the transmission of the disease, while we await additional doses of the COVID-19 vaccines,” he said.

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