Nigeria Receives First Batch of 3.92 Million Doses of Covid-19 Vaccines
02 März 2021 - 6:41PM
Dow Jones News
By Obafemi Oredein
Special to Dow Jones Newswires
IBADAN, Nigeria--Nigeria received its first delivery of 3.92
million doses of the Oxford University and AstraZeneca PLC Covid-19
vaccines on Tuesday, presidential spokesman Tolu Ogunlesi said on
Twitter.
Mr. Ogunlesi said the vaccines were shipped to Nigeria under the
Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access initiative, known as COVAX. Nigeria
is the third country in West Africa to benefit from the COVAX
facility after Ghana and the Ivory Coast.
The Nigeria Center for Disease Control said the vaccine will be
administered on President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi
Osinbajo after a few vials are handed to the National Agency for
Food and Drug Administration and Control for analysis over a period
of two days.
The National Primary Healthcare Development Agency in Nigeria,
the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children Fund
said in a joint statement that the delivery would mark the first
arrival of coronavirus vaccines in the country and enable the
NPHCDA to start vaccinating Nigerians in priority groups.
NPHCDA Chief Executive Faisal Shuaib said the agency has a
robust cold-chain system that can store all types of Covid-19
vaccines at the required temperatures. The NPHCDA said health
workers, frontline workers--including the military, police,
oil-and-gas workers and border control agents--and strategic
leaders will be prioritized in the first phase of vaccination.
The agency said vaccinations will start on March 5 at the
National Hospital in the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja.
Boss Mustapha, chairman of the Presidential Task Force on
Covid-19 and secretary to the government of the federation, said
Nigeria intends to vaccinate 70% of its population by 2022.
"Our intention is that in 2021, we will vaccinate at least 40%
of the population, and in 2022 vaccinate another 30% of the
population," he said.
Nigeria has a population of more than 200 million and as of
March 1, there were 156,017 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the
country with 1,915 deaths, according to the NCDC.
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 02, 2021 12:26 ET (17:26 GMT)
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