The Federal Government has said that a total of 1,794,552 Nigerians have received the first dose of Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines across the 36 states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The FG also announced that second dose vaccinations with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines have commenced.
This disclosure was made by the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) through a tweet post on its official Twitter handle on Saturday, May 15, 2021.
The NPHCDA stated that Lagos, the FCT and Kano have so far vaccinated the highest number of people with a total of 279,372, 118,895 and 92,583 respectively.
The health agency said that 4 states have achieved 100% of their target population. They are Kwara with 104%, Ekiti with 100%, Lagos with 101% and Cross River with 100%. According to the agency, this brings the proportion of vaccinated individuals in Nigeria to 89.2% of the target population.
The NPHCDA urged individuals who have received the first dose of the vaccine to ensure they check their vaccination cards to know when they are due for the second dose as this would ensure that vaccinated individuals receive their second dose within the recommended time, which is between 6 and 12 weeks.
The agency added that more than 2 million doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine have been reserved for the second phase of the vaccination exercise, noting that administering these 2 doses of the vaccine within the recommended time frame is critical to realising the full benefits of the vaccination program.
NPHCDA said, “This means that with the current supply, we will fully inoculate roughly two million Nigerians. We are removing an element of risk that is becoming too high.’’
What you should know
It can be recalled that Nigeria received about 4 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from the COVAX initiative out of the expected 16 million doses.
COVAX is the World Health Organization-backed vaccine-sharing initiative that provides free and equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines to lower-income countries.
NPHCDA has said that Nigeria is expecting about 40 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine from the African Union (AU) in a very short while from now.
The country has, so far, received about 4.1 million doses of the vaccine.
The Nigerian government said it plans to vaccinate 109 million people against the COVID-19 virus over a period of 2 years.
COVID-19 Vaccination Update for May 15th, 2021, in 36 States + the FCT.
How’s your State performing?#YesToCOVID19Vaccine pic.twitter.com/wzHcS5SVk3
— NPHCDA (@NphcdaNG) May 15, 2021
