COVID-19: Nigeria to begin administering 2nd batch of vaccines

The Presidential Steering Committee on COVID-19 (PSC), says the country will start administering the second batch of COVID-19 vaccines from Aug. 10.

The vaccines were  donated by the United State of America.

The committee’s Director of Publicity, Mr Willie Bassey, made this known in a statement on Saturday in Abuja.

According to Bassey, this is to step up efforts to battle  the third wave of infections.

“The PSC has received over  four million doses of Moderna vaccine donated by the U.S. Government to Nigeria.

“In view of the above,  the inoculation is scheduled from  Tuesday, Aug. 10, at the Federal Medical Centre, Jabi, off Airport road, Abuja,” he said.

NAN recalls that the donation was part of President Joe Biden’s promise to give 500 million vaccines to the world by the end of 2022.

The delivery was the second batch of vaccines to arrive in Nigeria after four million doses were delivered in March under the COVAX vaccine sharing facility.

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COVAX was set up to ensure equitable distribution of vaccines, particularly to low-income countries, and had already delivered more than 80 million doses to 129 territories.

Nigeria had since exhausted the four million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

The Moderna vaccine received on Aug. 1,  is mRNA type of vaccine,  manufactured and developed by Moderna, NIAID. Two shots of the vaccine are to be administered through intramuscular injection, 28 days apart.

The Moderna vaccine had been listed for emergency use by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and approved by the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC),  as safe and effective,  based on data from large-scale clinical trials.

NAN recalls that the Federal Government announced its plan to vaccinate 109 million people against the COVID-19 virus, over a period of two years.

It said that only eligible population from 18 years and above would  be vaccinated.

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To achieve this, “the vaccine roll-out will 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 will cover older adults aged 50 years and above and those with co-morbidities aged 18-49.

“Phase 3 will cover those in states/local governments with high disease burden and those who missed phases 1 and 2 while phase 4 will cover other eligible population as vaccines become available,” it stated. (NAN)