Nigeria Will Receive 4 Million Doses Of COVID-19 Vaccines On Tuesday, Says Mustapha

The Federal Government has said four million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines will arrive the country on Tuesday morning.

The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and Chairman, Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, Boss Mustapha, said this in a voice and video message made available to journalists.

The government, which had earlier announced that the vaccines will arrive the country by the end of February, later said it may be in the first week of March.

But in his latest message, the SGF said: “I can assure you that the vaccines are coming and they are coming very quickly barring any change in the delivery plan that has been released to us by UNICEF.

“We believe that our vaccines should depart India on the 1st of March, 2021 at 10:30pm and arrive Abuja on 2nd of March 2021 by 11:10 am. And we are making preparations for that.

“We are supposed to have 16 million in the first quarter from the COVAX facility, and expecting that by the time they supply all the range, we are expecting that they would supply about 84 million doses of the COVAX facility, which is free of charge and is supposed to cover at least 20 percent of the Nigerian population.”

Global Assess Facility (COVAX), a World Health Organization (WHO)-backed programme, has been saddled with the responsibility of sharing two billion doses of vaccines across 92 low-and middle-income countries.

The SGF added that the federal government will still get vaccines from a combination of Oxford AstraZeneca and Johnson and Johnson vaccines.

He said 41 million doses are expected from the second source, and assured that AstraZeneca has a good range in terms of storage which does not come with any complications because it can be stored in +2 to +8 Degree Celsius and in cold chain facilities that are available in all local governments and wards in the country.

Mustapha commended the nation’s health workers and various frontline workers for their efforts to combat the coronavirus pandemic.

Daily Trust reports that Ghana on Wednesday received 600,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccines, making it the first country in Africa to benefit from the COVAX programme.

Ivory Coast, a country with over 32,000 COVID-19 cases and 188 deaths, received over 500,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine on Friday.