The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has allocated over $5m additional funds for the promotion of acceptance and uptake of the COVID-19 vaccines in Nigeria.
This was revealed at the Breakthrough Action Nigeria’s work plan development workshop for the fiscal year 2023 by Olayinka Umar-Farouk, deputy project director, Risk Communication, of the organisation.
In a statement made available to the media, it stated that the funding would enable the organisation to refine its approaches and address vaccine hesitancy across different states in Nigeria, with a key focus on people living with HIV and AIDS, healthcare workers and persons with co-morbidity illnesses.
Breakthrough Action Nigeria has been funded by USAID since the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020 to support risk communication and community engagement efforts in Nigeria.
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It is in furtherance of the government’s efforts to attain 70 percent vaccination coverage of all eligible adults by September 2022 adding that Breakthrough Action Nigeria has reached 741,791 persons with COVID-19 messages via mass vaccination activities between November 2021 – March 2022 across FCT, Oyo, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Bauchi, Sokoto, Bayelsa and Kano states.
Through these activities, 415,376 persons have been vaccinated.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, according to Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), COVID-19 has affected a total number of 256,415 persons in the country, causing the death of 3,144 persons.
However, 250,147 lives have been saved, having been treated and discharged from different health facilities across the nation.
Concerted efforts in the next fiscal year will intensify messaging and community efforts aimed at making people understand why they need to protect themselves and their families; increasing vaccine acceptance with focus on some key members of the population including persons living with HIV/AIDS, people living with other illnesses, which COVID-19 affects as well as healthcare workers.
