THE National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) has said that 96 per cent of its targeted population for the first phase of COVID-19 vaccination have received their first shot.
Executive Director of NPHCDA Faisal Shuaib said this during a press briefing in Abuja on Tuesday concerning the vaccination campaign in Nigeria.
Shuaib said that as at May 24, a total number of 1.929 million Nigerians had received the first doses of the vaccine, noting that the commission had almost completed administering same.
He noted that the agency had also commenced the administration of the second doses of the vaccine and 4,683 Nigerians had been fully vaccinated from the virus.
Shuaib also said that those individuals currently eligible for the second doses must have received their first doses six to 12 weeks ago.
The director further stated that the date for the next shipment of COVID-19 vaccine into Nigeria was unclear due to global challenges on vaccine supply.
He noted that Nigeria could get its next consignment of vaccine by end of July or August, but the date had not been officially confirmed.
However, he said Pfizer and BioNTech had pledged on Friday to provide one billion doses of their COVID-19 vaccine to low-and-middle-income countries by the end of 2021, and another one billion doses in 2022.
He further stated that another manufacturer Johnson & Johnson had also signed a deal to provide 200 million doses of its vaccine to the Covax facility, which Nigeria is part of.
On other variants of the COVID-19 virus, Shuaib said the Federal Government was taking significant precautions to protect Nigerians against B.1.617.2, known as the Indian variant, which informed the decision to ban flights from India and other high-risk countries such as Turkey and Brazil from entering Nigeria.
“We are ramping up our test and trace measures, and we are accelerating the national project to establish production of oxygen supplies across all states of Nigeria,” Shuaib said.
He enjoined Nigerians to continue to observe the public health or non-pharmaceutical measures in place to curb the transmission of Covid-19.
Less than five per cent of Nigerians are vaccinated
According to the data provided by the NPHCDA, less than five per cent of the estimated 200 million Nigerian population have received a shot of COVID-19 vaccine.
Earlier in March, Nigeria had received 3.9 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine in the nation’s effort to safeguard its citizens from COVID-19.
The NPHCDA had said the first phase of vaccine administration would be focused on frontline workers and strategic leaders before persons 50 years and above- with priority for people with co-morbidities.
Other phases included persons within the age of 18-49 years with co-morbidities and then the rest of the eligible population (i.e. 18-49 years without co-morbidities).
Lukman Abolade is an Investigative reporter with The ICIR. Reach out to him via [email protected], on twitter @AboladeLAA and FB @Correction94