Over 3.4m have taken 1st, 2nd doses of COVID-19 vaccine – NPHCDA

EXECUTIVE Director, National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr. Faisal Shuaib, has announced that a total of 3,441,146 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine have so far been utilised for the 1st and 2nd dose vaccinations in Nigeria.

  Dr Faisal Shuaib, disclosed this during the national briefing of the COVID-19 Presidential Steering Committee in Abuja, yesterday.

  According to him, a total of 4,024,000 doses of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine were received by the federal government of Nigeria in March 2021; 3.924 million through the COVAX facility and another 100,000 doses from the Government of India.

  “I am glad to inform you that 3,441,146 doses have so far been utilised for the 1st and 2nd dose vaccinations, which is approximately 88 per cent of the total AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine stock in the country. As of today, the breakdown of the number of people vaccinated and the vaccine consumption is as follows: 2,265,805 people vaccinated with the first dose; 1,175,341 people vaccinated with the second dose and this means 88 per cent of vaccine doses have been used. Based on these data and comparative information from other countries, Nigeria continues to have the highest vaccination rates in Africa with approximately 87,000 people being vaccinated daily. Egypt, South Africa, Ghana and Senegal each have daily vaccination rates of 72,000, 52,600, 12,100 and 4,790, respectively,” he said.

  “Similarly, the government is procuring a total allocation of 29,850,000 of Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) COVID-19 vaccine through the African Union Commission and the AfreximBank arrangement. This is expected by September 2021,” he said.