Pascal Arogorn Ibe
The Federal Government will need about N 2. 44tn for the vaccination of 164. 8 million Nigerians, who will not have access to free vaccines the country is expecting from the international community .
Currently, coronavirus vaccines available globally include those discovered by Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson , Oxford and Novavax .
Recall that the Executive Director of the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency , Faisal Shuaib , at a press conference of the Presidential Task Force on COVID – 19 in Abuja on Tuesday, said 100, 000 doses of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine would be received by the country at the end of this month.
He also said Nigeria would secure free delivery of 42 million doses of vaccines , which would be a combination of all the available and approved vaccines currently in the market.
According to him , the 42 million doses of the vaccines will only cover 20 per cent of the country’ s population , which the National Population Commission, recently put at 206 million.
Shuaib added that the NPHCDA , the PTF and the Federal Ministry of Health were working on financial requirements for procuring more vaccines.
He , however , said the country needed to cover only 70 per cent of its population with vaccination to battle the virus .
But based on his statement that the 42 million doses of vaccines, which Nigeria would get free of charge, would cover 20 per cent of Nigeria ’ s population , it means 41. 2 million Nigerians would vaccinated against COVID – 19, leaving 164. 8 million others unprotected.
Although there are various vaccines, www. healthline . com states that Pfizer /BioNTech vaccine costs $19. 5 per dose ( $39 per two doses ) .
The United States ’ Food and Drug Administration Agency had last month said Pfizer-BioNTech COVID -19 vaccine is administered as a two -dose series, three weeks apart.
Based on the two -dose requirement for each of the 164. 8 million Nigerians , it means the country will need $6. 43bn or N 2. 44tn ( using CBN official exchange rate of N 379/$1) to procure the vaccine for them .
A professor of virologist , Oyewale Tomori , in an interview with The PUNCH on Wednesday, gave the costs of other vaccines
According to him , Moderna vaccine is between $10 and $50, Johnson & Johnson , $10 and Oxford , $3 to $4 per dose .
He , however , advised the Federal Government to not procure vaccines that the country lacked the facility to store.
Tomori said procuring a vaccine that would be difficult to store in Nigeria would be like adding to the problem of the pandemic in the country .
He said , “ There are three or four different types of vaccines at the moment ; there is the one from Pfizer that must be stored at -70° C; Moderna vaccine must be stored at -20°C and there are others that can be stored at fridge temperature. ”
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