THE Chief Executive Officer of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) Shuaib Faisal has disclosed that Nigeria has successfully vaccinated 3.938 million eligible persons against COVID-19 across the 36 states.
Faisal said this during a media briefing on the progress of COVID-19 vaccination in Nigeria, held on Tuesday, July 13, in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory.
He said the country had ended the first phase of its strategic COVID-19 vaccination plan and was now preparing to commence the second phase in the next few weeks.
He also disclosed that Nigeria had received communication for the delivery of some vaccine shipments in the coming months.
According to Shuaib, 3.924 million doses of Oxford/AstraZeneca/Moderna would be delivered by end of July or early August 2021 from the COVAX Facility, whie 3.930 million doses of Pfizer-Bio-N Tech/Moderna COVID-19 vaccine would be shipped into the country in August from the COVAX Facility donated by the United States government.
About 3.577 million doses of Pfizer-Bio-N Tech/Moderna COVID-19 vaccine would be received in the third quarter (Q3) from the COVAX Facility and 29.850 million doses of Johnson & Johnson (Jassen) COVID-19 vaccine by the end of September.
The vaccines would arrive in batches from the African Union Commission, he said.
He further stated that the NPHCDA was putting all necessary logistics for storage, distribution, security, and accountability for the range of vaccines the country was expecting.
He further said the Federal Government of Nigeria had procured 60 units of U701 ultra-cold chain equipment, and about 37 of them had been deployed to all the 36 states and FCT in preparation for all COVID-19 vaccines that would require an ultra-cold temperature of below 40 to 85 degrees.
On the detection of the Delta variant of COVID-19 in Nigeria, the NPHCDA boss said it was vital that Nigerians continued to observe non-pharmaceutical or public health measures such as wearing of face masks, social distancing and hand hygiene in order to curb the transmission of the disease while awaiting additional doses of COVID-19 vaccines.
Blessing Otoibhi is a Multimedia Journalist and Anchor host for the News in 60 seconds at The International Center For Investigative Reporting. You can shoot her a mail via [email protected] or connect on Twitter @B_otoibhi