The Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire; Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr Faisal Shuaib and others received the first batch of COVID-19 vaccines at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja Tuesday.
An Emirate plane — Boeing 777300ER, carrying 3.92 million doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine arrived at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport Abuja in Nigeria at 11.36 a.m. on Tuesday.
The vaccine shipment is from COVAX, a global scheme to procure and distribute inoculations for free, as the world races to contain the coronavirus pandemic.
The boing 777300ER Emirate aircraft has a cooling system.
A total of two billion doses is expected to be delivered to COVAX member nations by the end of 2021 and the 3.92 million doses is Nigeria’s first shipment from the 16 million doses initially expected in the country.
The 3.92 million doses of vaccine was licenced by the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, the Serum Institute of India as part of an initial tranche of deliveries headed to several low and middle-income countries which Nigeria is part of.
Earlier, Dr Faisal Shuaib, the Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), said “we have been informed that four million out of the 16 million doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines would arrive in the first batch of supplies to the country.”
Shuaib said the agency established a national COVID-19 operations room to track planned activities at all levels and report on state of preparedness, using a dash board to also identify and address gaps promptly.
According to him, an additional 500,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine donated by telecom giant, MTN, will also be delivered to the country.
