Nigeria receives 2.5m Pfizer Covid vaccines from U.S

COVAX has secured enough vaccines to achieve 45 percent of coverage across countries by the middle of this year

Nigeria this week, received 2.5 million Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines as donations from the United States.

The U.S Embassy made this known in a statement on Thursday in which it said the National Primary Health Care Development Agency received the vaccines, ensuring they were taken to cold storage to prepare for distribution to over 3,000 health facilities across all 36 states and FCT-Abuja.

The statement disclosed that over the next several weeks, the vaccines will be available at major markets, shopping malls, event centres, motor parks, airports, places of employment, and religious institutions as part of Nigeria’s mass vaccination campaign.

The embassy noted that the United States has to date, donated more than 13.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine in partnership with COVAX, or bilaterally to Nigeria. “Additionally, the United States has provided more than $119 million in COVID-19 related health assistance.

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“This includes a 40-bed mobile field hospital, ventilators and related training for 88 hospitals, personal protective equipment, technical assistance for vaccine readiness, risk communication and demand generation for vaccines, conducting an epidemiological COVID-19 detection and vaccine hesitancy survey, setting up electronic record systems, rapid response teams, training for over 200,000 military and civilian personnel on COVID-19 control measures, and technology for virtual training.

“In addition, the United States leveraged the PEPFAR-supported National Integrated Specimen Referral Network (NiSRN) and laboratory investments to support the expansion of the NCDC (153) molecular laboratory network nationwide,” the statement read.

Quoting Antony Blinken, the U.S. Secretary of State who noted earlier this month, “The COVID-19 pandemic won’t end for any country until it ends for all countries. Otherwise, the virus will keep replicating around the world, people will keep getting sick and dying, and we won’t be able to safely reopen our economies or travel around the world for business and tourism the way we used to. That’s why the United States is committed to helping end the pandemic in Nigeria and everywhere.”

The U.S embassy said the United States is committed to donating more than one billion vaccine doses around the world, by early 2022. This, it said, includes African countries primarily through the COVAX initiative. It noted that improving equitable distribution remains a priority for the United States to prevent the emergence of new variants that threaten populations everywhere.