NPHCDA: Nigeria receives 100m doses of COVID-19 vaccines

Nigeria has so far received over 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines from COVAX, African Union and other countries.

This number is sufficient to ramp up vaccination for about 50 per cent of the targeted Nigerian population.

The total eligible population of Nigerians for the vaccine is over 111 million.

Executive Director/CEO of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr. Faisal Shuaib, made the disclosure on Thursday while  informing NEC on the Status of the country’s COVID-19 Vaccine roll-out.

“Given the availability of vaccines, we have started rolling out a plan to vaccinate 50 per cent of Nigerians, 18 years and above by January 31st, 2022,” Shuaib said.

He added that there would be a scaling up of over 3,000 health facilities nationwide.

Also, in his presentation to the Council on state performance report on COVID-19, the Director-General, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr. Ifedayo Adetifa said Nigerians must continue to maintain and sustain the COVID-19 response, especially as it enters the holiday season.

Adetifa said the country should “maintain visibility of the outbreak by testing, continuing to encourage adherence to public health and social measures, encourage vaccination and address vaccine hesitancy.”

The DG, NCDC added that the Delta variant of the COVID-19 is still the dominant strain of concern in the country.