FG to begin registration of Nigerians for COVID-19 vaccination

The executive director, National Primary Health Care Development (NPHCDA), Faisal Shuaib, on Monday announced that registration of Nigerians for COVID-19 vaccination will begin this week.

Shuaib said a URL link will be deployed this week for the online registration of health workers and other eligible Nigerians aged 18 years and above to appropriately schedule them for COVID-19 vaccination.

To facilitate the process, Shuaib said the Technical Working Group has come up with the TEACH strategy of registration and scheduling of crowd population.

“In the TEACH approach, the T entails Traditional method of vaccinating target population. E means Electronic self-registration of health workers and the general public. A is Assisted Electronic registration for those who cannot self-register. C is Concomitant E- registration and vaccination, and H is House-to-house registration using volunteers for additional push,” he said.

The ED, speaking at the press briefing by the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, said government plans to vaccinate Nigerians above 18 years totalling 109 million over the next two years, including pregnant women with guidance from their health providers.

According to him, all eligible populations have been identified using WHO vaccine allocation framework and prioritisation roadmap as well as the disease burden data from the NCDC.

He said the first criteria include the frontline health workers and support staff, Rapid Response Teams, Contact Tracing Teams, Covid-19 vaccination team and strategic leadership, people aged 59 and above, people aged 18 to 49 with significant comorbidities and other at-risk groups.

Shuaib added the NPHCDA will train additional health workers over the next two weeks in addition to the 60,000 health workers to ensure best practices in vaccination.

He also informed that the federal government has received a commitment of about1.5 million, and 100,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines from MTN and the government of India, respectively.