Six months after Nigeria commenced vaccination of citizens against the rampaging coronavirus, 1.6 million eligible persons have been fully vaccinated.
The Executive-Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Faisal Shuaib, stated this at a briefing by the Presidential Steering Committee (PSC) Monday.
Shuaib said 1,692,315 persons have received two doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines, as approved by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
He also said as of Monday evening, 4,052,756 eligible Nigerians have received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccines.
“This is made up of 2,645,020 persons with the first dose of AstraZeneca vaccine and 1,407,736 persons with first dose of moderna vaccine.
“A total of 1,692,315 eligible persons are fully vaccinated and we currently have a national average of 70.4 per cent utilisation of the 2,000,040 doses of Moderna vaccines we received,” Shuaib said.
He said states have been guided not to exceed their 50 per cent utilisation rates for Moderna vaccines in order to reserve the second doses for all those already vaccinated.
He noted that most states have reached this percentage and priority is now focused on administering AstraZeneca vaccine as first dose vaccine in all states across the country.
He urged states yet to publish their vaccination sites across the various media platforms – newspapers, radio, TV, and social media, to enable people locate their nearest vaccination sites.
“The list of vaccination sites across the country is also available on the NPHCDA website www.nphcda.gov.ng. Eligible persons who are unable to register by themselves can go to any designated health facility where he/she will be assisted by our vaccination team,” he said.
