The Nigeria Government on Friday commenced commenced the vaccination of its citizens against coronavirus, kickstarting the exercise with health care workers, known to be at risk of exposure to infections.
Penpushing reports that, about 4 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine were delivered to Nigeria through the Coronavirus Vaccines Global Assess Facility (COVAX) on Tuesday.
The delivery is part of an overall 16 million doses planned to be delivered to Nigeria in batches over the next weeks, while the Nigerian Government had announced that the vaccine roll-out will be in four phases.
Penpushing further reports that the announcement stated that the vaccination will start with health workers, frontline workers, coronavirus rapid response team, laboratory network, policemen, petrol station workers and strategic leaders.
The Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on coronavirus, Boss Mustapha at the national flag-off of the vaccination at the National hospital, Abuja,explained that in line with the risk faced by the frontline health workers, they would be the first set of beneficiaries.
“In keeping with our promise, the PTF is prioritizing the frontline healthcare workers in the first batch of vaccines received,.They have fought hard to save us. They laid down their lives for us, and in the ICUs and treatment centres, they became our last line of defense,” Mr Mustapha said.
Penpushing also reports that, the Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA),Faisal Shuaib explained the phases in order of priority
“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”,he said
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