Nigeria’s National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) has announced that the country has exhausted the doses of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines it received from the COVAX facility in March 2021.
According to Dr. Faisal Shuaib, ED/CEO NPHCDA, Nigeria has successfully utilized 3,938,945 doses of Astrazeneca vaccines across 36 States and FCT, representing 98% utilization of the 4,024,000 doses of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine it received from COVAX facility in March 2021.
“This comprises of 2,534,205 people who have been vaccinated for first dose, and 1,404,205 who have received their second dose of the vaccine. This is to say, that all vaccines given to Nigeria in this 1st phase has been exhausted,” Shuaib said.
He also revealed Nigeria recorded 14,550 cases of mild to moderate side effects, with only 148 cases considered to be severe.
“However, we did not record any case of death directly associated with the COVID-19 vaccination,” Shuaib said.
He announced the country has officially ended the first phase of its strategic COVID-19 vaccination plan and is now preparing to commence the second phase in the next few weeks.
“As plans and preparation for the second phase commences, ‘a whole family approach’ vaccination mechanism would be utilized. This is because Nigeria is plagued with other preventable and treatable diseases,” the CEO said.
He added that the country will use the opportunity of COVID-19 vaccination to “integrate with other health system”.