NPHCDA Executive Director says Nigeria Will Receive More COVID-19 Vaccines by July/August

The Nigerian government is set to receive 3.92 million more doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines, Premium Times reports.

As disclosed by the Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Faisal Shuaib, during a media briefing in Abuja on Tuesday, the vaccines will be received via the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Assess Facility (COVAX) by July or August 2021.

In March, the NPHCDA reported that approximately 3.9 million doses of the AstraZeneca Vaccine were delivered in Abuja. According to Premium Times, “Nigeria on March 21 received another 300,000 doses of the same vaccine from telecom giant, MTN. On April 6, the government of India also delivered 100,000 doses of Covishield vaccines to Nigeria bringing the total number of vaccines in stock to about 4.4million.”

The vaccination which is meant to be taken in two doses was officially closed for the first dose on 24th May 2021. Faisal says vaccination for the first dose has now reopened and those who have received their first dose are to check their vaccination cards for the date of their first dose and ensure that they receive the second dose between 6-12 weeks after their first dose.

Read Faisal Shuaib’s statement below:

We now have information that Nigeria will get 3.92m doses of Oxford/Astrazeneca by the end of July or early August.

I will once again remind those listening that we are advising all Nigerians who have received their first dose to check their vaccination cards for the date of their first dose and ensure that they receive the second dose between 6-12 weeks after their 1st dose to gain full protection against COVID-19.

Please note that in some cases the location of your second dose may be different from your first dose, so please be sure to confirm this.

Recall that we officially closed the vaccination for the first dose on 24th May 2021. Since then, we have been inundated with requests by Nigerians to be vaccinated.

In response, we have decided to reopen vaccination for the first dose from today. This means anyone 18 years and above who has not been vaccinated should visit the nearest vaccination site for the first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

For such persons, their second dose will be due in 12 weeks and by then we would have received the next consignment of vaccines.