By Juliet Nwabiani Okafor (Managing Editor) @AuntyJVIN
The four million doses of Covid-19 COVAX vaccines allocated to Nigeria at no cost to the nation by UNICEF will arrive on Nigeria's shores this Tuesday, March 2, 2021.
This was made known at the weekend by the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on Covid-19.
Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and Chairman of the PTF on Covid-19, Boss Mustapha, assured in Abuja on Saturday night, that the vaccines are indeed coming "very quickly, barring any change in the delivery plan that has been released to us by UNICEF".
He stated that though there could be some delay in the delivery arrangement "because the logistical arrangements and other things are in the hands of the UNICEF, we believe that vaccines should depart India on the 1st of March 2021 at 10:30 pm in the night and arrive Abuja on the second of March 2021, at about 11 am in the morning. So we are making preparation for that".
The PTF Chairman also said that “the truth about it is that as we received the vaccines, this one is coming from the corporate facility. About 4 million doses of vaccines are coming from the corporate facility on this one tree. We’re supposed to have about 16 million in the first quarter from the COVAX facility.
"By the time they supply all the range we expect that they will supply, about 84 million doses from the COVID facility which is free of charge, and is supposed to cover about 20 percent of the Nigerian population.
“We also have another source of vaccines coming in from the African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team (AVATT) facility. We expect about 41 million of that combination of AstraZeneca and Johnson and Johnson. Everything we are expecting from the COVAX facility, I believe is going to be the AstraZeneca which has a good range in terms of storage for us because it uses just plus two, two plus 8% of refrigeration. It doesn’t come with a new complication.
“We already have that cold chain available in virtually all the local governments or constituencies and wards in this country. I believe we are well prepared to receive our vaccines. And I hope that they keep to this timeframe that they have given us and we are eagerly expecting vaccines", Mustapha said.
He warned Nigerians not to see the vaccines as an excuse not to keep observing the existing safety protocols or non-pharmaceutical interventions put in place by the PTF.
“I must caution Nigerians that it is going to be a combination of vaccines with the non-pharmaceutical measures and it (non-pharmaceutical measures) will remain in place, the wearing of masks the keeping of social distancing, the need for personal hygiene and taking responsibility to ensure that we do not congregate in large gatherings and avoid travels if it is not necessary", the SGF said.
