COVID-19: Over 700,000 vaccine doses administered as of March 31 — NPHCDA

The National Primary Health Development Agency (NPHCDA), said 718,412 eligible people have been vaccinated, using the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines as of on Wednesday.

The NPHCDA disclosed this on its official Twitter handle on Wednesday.

Nigeria kicked off vaccination since March 5, 2021, commencing the exercise with healthcare workers who are mostly at risk to the infections being the first responders.

It  noted that the vaccine roll-out would be in four phases, starting with health workers, frontline workers, COVID-19 rapid response team, laboratory network, policemen, petrol station workers and strategic leaders.

“Phase 2 – Older adults aged 50 years and above. Those with co-morbidities aged 18 – 49 years of age

“Phase 3 – Those in states/LGAs with high disease burden and who missed phases 1 and 2.

“Phase 4 – Other eligible population as vaccines become available,” it said.

It also noted that the proportion of eligible people vaccinated in the country is 35.7 per cent as of March 31.

The agency said that the COVID-19 vaccination has started across all states except for Kogi, which is yet to receive doses for the exercise.

Kogi, which had reported only five cases since the beginning of the pandemic, was not supplied with doses of the vaccines due to the fact that its cold store is still under repairs following vandalisation during the EndSARS protest.

Meanwhile, the agency said in a tweet last Monday that it met with Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello, to resolve issues around vaccine storage and provision of security at the Cold Store.

According to the tally posted as of March 31, the agency had administered 718,412 doses of the vaccines since the beginning of vaccination in the country.

The NPHCDA is yet to disclose what number of vaccine doses have been distributed across the nation, and how many was left at its national cold store as of March 31.

The Nigerian immunization agency said that 718,412 people had received their first doses of the Oxford AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.

It stated that the vaccinated people would take their second doses after 12 weeks of vaccination to be fully vaccinated.

According to it, Lagos, has vaccinated 136,356 people; making it the highest in the country.

“This is followed by Ogun with 50,870, Kaduna-46,474, Katsina- 37,819, Bauchi- 33,368 and Kano- 33,258.

“The states with the lowest number of vaccinated people are Abia-697 and Taraba-1,568 so far,” it stated.

It also said that it plans to vaccinate 109 million people against the COVID-19 virus over a period of two years.

It would be recalled that Nigeria commenced COVID-19 vaccination in early March, having received 3.94 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines through the COVAX facility.

The country recently received another 300,000 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines from telecom giant, MTN, as part of the latter’s contribution to Africa.