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Nigeria to receive 3.92m doses of AstraZeneca vaccines end July – FG

Nigeria to receive 3.92m doses of AstraZeneca vaccines end July – FG

The Federal Government through the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) on Tuesday said it has received confirmation that 3.92 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines will arrive Nigeria by the end of July or early August.

Faisal Shuaib, executive director/CEO, NPHCDA, speaking at a press conference in Abuja, said the vaccines will be delivered through the COVAX facility.

“The last time I spoke we were not certain about when the next batch of vaccines will be coming, but we have received official communication that Nigeria will get 3.92m doses of Oxford/AstraZeneca by end of July or early August. COVAX will only communicate when the vaccines are secured and our partners have validated that the vaccines have been secured,” Shuaib said.

“As we receive additional information on the exact dates in August, we will provide an update regarding timelines and details of this.”

Shuaib said a recent research from Public Health England (PHE) shows that the Indian (Delta) variant B.1.617.2 is 92% susceptible to Oxford/AstraZeneca.

Read Also: World Bank, AU to deploy vaccines for 400m Africans

“It is therefore comforting to know that the vaccine used in Nigeria can protect against this variant that caused high morbidity and mortality in India. However, it underscores the need for us to ramp up our vaccination to more Nigerians”, he said.

The ED informed that as at 15th June 2021, Nigeria has administered 1,978,808 first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine and 680,345-second doses.

He further informed that the ongoing administration of the second dose of vaccines will end June 25th and therefore called on all Nigerians who have received their first dose at least six weeks ago to visit the nearest vaccination site to receive their second dose for full protection against COVID-19.

He recalled that Nigeria closed the vaccination for the first dose on 24th May 2021. He said since then, the agency has been inundated with request by Nigerians to be vaccinated.

“In response, we have decided to reopen vaccination for the first dose from today. This means anyone 18 years and above who has not been vaccinated should visit the nearest vaccination site for the first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine. For such persons, their second dose will be due in 12 weeks and by then we would have received the next consignment of vaccines,” he said.

The World Health Organisation country representative, Walter Kazedi, noted that there is a push towards lifting the patent to decentralise the vaccine production.

He said currently there is a consideration to select up to three countries in Africa to install the capacity and start local production, adding that the G7 nations have pledged over 800 million doses of vaccines.

“It is expected that over the next few weeks the availability of vaccines will improve,” he said.