Nigeria expects to receive nearly 8 million additional doses of COVID-19 vaccines by the end of August, including from a United States government donation.
The head of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) Faisal Shuaib said Nigeria exhausted its initial supply of nearly four million shots last week and aims to resume vaccinations within weeks, when the new doses arrive.
Nigeria expects delivery of 3.924 million doses of Oxford/AstraZeneca shots from global vaccine-sharing scheme COVAX by the end of July or early August, Shuaib said, and an additional 3.93 million doses of either Pfizer/Biotech or Moderna, donated by the U.S. government via COVAX, in August.
Shuaib, in an Abuja press briefing, urged citizens to abide by “non-pharmaceutical” measures, such as mask wearing and social distancing, to stem the spread of the virus until fresh doses arrived. Shuaib said Nigeria recorded 14,550 of mild to moderate adverse reactions to the vaccines but no fatalities linked to the shots.
The White House last month outlined a plan to share 55 million U.S. COVID-19 vaccine doses globally via COVAX. Nigeria recently detected the highly contagious Delta variant, while the governor Lagos state warned that it was on the verge of a third wave of infections.
The 3.92 million Oxford/AstraZeneca doses Nigeria received in March from COVAX covered a small fraction of its 200 million citizens. He said Nigeria expects another 3.577 million doses of Pfizer/Biotech or Moderna from COVAX in the third quarter, as well as 29.85 million Johnson & Johnson shots purchased via the African Union, though he did not say when these would arrive.
