An airplane carrying 3.92 million doses of the vaccine developed by
drugmaker AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford arrived at the
Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, on
Tuesday.
Nigeria is the third African country to receive its first batch of COVID-19
vaccines as part of the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) COVAX
program, a global effort to ensure equitable vaccine access for low- and
middle-income countries.
Ghana and Cote D’Ivoire are the first two African countries to receive
doses of the COVAX jabs. Some 237 million doses of the Oxford/
AstraZeneca vaccine are to be delivered by the end of May to 142
participating countries, COVAX says.This batch of vaccines are the first
part of the 16 million vaccine doses Nigeria will receive through the
COVAX Facility in the coming months. Frontline and health care workers
will be among the first to receive the vaccines doses. Nigeria is also
expecting another 40 million vaccine doses from the African Union, to be
delivered by the end of April, said government official Tolu Ogunlesi.
He also tweeted that a supplementary budget has been pushed by
President Muhammadu Buhari to purchase more vaccines.
“Congratulations to Nigeria and our COVAX partners on making the third
delivery of COVID-19 vaccines in Africa. We must #ACTogether to supply
vaccines to all countries in the first 100 days of 2021. We have 39 days
left to deliver on vaccine equity,” tweeted Dr. Tedros Adhanom
Ghebreyesus, director general of the WHO.
Many richer countries have made progress in vaccinating their populace
while most of the poorer nations of the world are yet to receive their
first batch of vaccines, raising concerns around equitable vaccine
distribution and vaccine nationalism. Nigerian authorities approved the
AstraZeneca vaccine for use last month and vaccinations are scheduled
to start on Friday, after final checks by the country’s drug agency.
With a 200 million-strong population, Nigeria has reported more than
156,000 cases and 1,900 deaths since the start of the coronavirus
pandemic, according to the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC).