Nigeria receives 501,600 doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine from France

Nigeria has received 501,600 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine through the COVAX facility.

READ ALSO: Sokoto recieves 34,404 doses of Moderna Vaccines

The Executive Director of National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) , Dr. Faisal Shuaib, disclosed this on Tuesday  at the weekly media briefing on the COVID-19 vaccination in the country.

According to Shuaib, the 501,600 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine were donated by France.

He also stated that in the next two weeks, the country would receive 3,577,860 doses of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.

“I would like to inform you that on monday evening, we received 501,600 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines from the COVAX facility as a donation from the Government of France. We have also gotten confirmation that we will be receiving 3,577,860 doses of Pfizer vaccines within the next two weeks.”

Recall that in early March, Nigeria took delivery of 3.92 million doses of the vaccine to kick start COVID-19 vaccination in the country.

Also, in early August, the country took delivery of four million doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine from the United States.

This was followed by 177,600 doses of Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) vaccine received in August that the Nigerian government procured through the African Vaccine Acquisition Team of the African Union Commission through the facility provided by the AFREXIMBANK.

According to the NPHCDA, this is part of the 29,850,000 doses of Janssen that would be delivered in monthly tranches.

Shuaib also stated that as of Monday (October 4), a total of 4,963,985 eligible people in the country have received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine while 2,166,186 people have received the second dose and are now fully vaccinated.

The Executive Director urged eligible people who are yet to receive their COVID-19 vaccine to visit the online vaccination site to book an appointment and be vaccinated.

MTO/Punch