Barely 24 hours after the arrival of the country’s first batch of COVID-19 vaccines, the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, NPHCDA, on Wednesday disclosed that at least 2.3million Nigerians have registered for vaccination in its portal.
This is according to the NPHCDA Director-General, Dr. Faisal Shuaib, who made this known during a virtual meeting in Abuja.
“I can tell you that there is a lot of excitement. Although some people have raised their concerns and we are trying to address them, but the enthusiasm is in less than 24 hours that the portal was launched, we have recorded about 2.3 million Nigerians who have registered to be vaccinated and the number continues to grow,” he said.
While stressing that the task placed on Presidential Task Force, PTF on COVID-19, Ministry of Health and NPHCDA would not be taken for granted, he assured that work had already commenced to receive the next batch of vaccines.
“The balance of 12 million doses will be arriving in batches between now and the month of May. The COVAX facilities as we are all aware and ground-breaking establishment involving Gavic Alliance for Immunization and WHO is to make sure that there is equitable access to vaccines globally.
“In terms of what to do additionally to get the rest of the population vaccinated, Shuaibu said that all the paper works have been done to apply what is required to procure up to 41 million doses of additional COVID-19 vaccine.
“Right now, about 22.9 million AstraZeneca Oxford vaccines are in place and about 18 million doses of Johnson and Johnson will be procured.
“The next consignment of vaccine from Africa union is the 41 million which will start coming in from March to April and May,” he added.
