By John Ikani
The Federal Government of Nigeria says it has been able to fully vaccinate 21,236,404 of its eligible population with the COVID-19 vaccine.
Executive Director of the National Primary HealthCare Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr. Faisal Shuaib, disclosed this at a ministerial briefing, yesterday, in Abuja.
According to him: “As at 10pm yesterday, the 19th of June 202, of the 111,776,503 eligible Nigerian residents target for the entire vaccination cycle, a total of 21,236,404 people were fully vaccinated with different mix of COVID-19 vaccines while 28,426,564 people were partially vaccinated, indicating 19.05 per cent and 25.4 per cent respectively.”
Shuaib who was represented by Dr. Abdullahi Bulama Garba, said from the above statistics, it was clear that Nigeria was still far in achieving its set target of vaccinating 70 per cent of her eligible population.
The NPHCDA boss said that more aggressive actions need to be taken to fast-track the process to achieve herd immunity against COVID-19 infections in the country.
He disclosed that one of the strategies being adopted by the agency to achieve its objective was the introduction of the concept of mass vaccination across the country, which has been reinforced with the concept of service integration, where COVID-19 vaccines are given along with other high-impact health interventions such as routine immunisation.
The NPHCDA boss further noted that another major strategy was “the expansion of the vaccination sites to include all the publicly-owned Primary Healthcare Centres (PHC), secondary and tertiary health facilities, public and private corporate bodies, selected private health facilities, including private laboratories, educational institutions as well as military and para-military formations.”
“We have also created mass vaccination sites in stadia, shopping malls, markets, religious houses, motor packs and in carefully selected/trained pharmaceutical stores,” he said.
Recall that the country, last week, experienced a consistent rise in number of fresh Coronavirus infections, as the NCDC announced that it recorded 240 infections between June 8 and 15.
The centre added that the infection toll has increased to 256,467, while the fatality toll now stands at 3,144. It also noted on its website that 3,123 people are currently down with the illness, while 250,154 people have been treated and discharged nationwide since the outbreak more than two years ago.
The breakdown of the cases shows that Lagos State, the epicentre of the disease, accounts for over 50 per cent of the recent surge in cases. The commercial city also topped the latest update with 50 cases, followed by Kano with 11 infections.
