The Federal Government of Nigeria has received about 859,000 doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines and 175 solar direct drive refrigerators donated by the Japan government to help reduce the number of COVID-19 patients in the country.
This was disclosed in the country’s capital city, Abuja by the Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr. Faisal Shuaib, where he mentioned that the vaccine doses were donated by the Japan government to strengthen the global effort to defeat the coronavirus pandemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic which started in China in 2019, with its first confirmed case in Nigeria on 27 February 2020 and has since then recorded 254,606 Coronavirus cases, with about 3,142 Coronavirus deaths and 249,139 recoveries in the country according to the World Health Organization (WHO) has been a major outbreak to be defeated both globally and particularly in Nigeria.
Since its outbreak in the country, efforts have been made to reduce the number of affected patients by the Federal Government as the country conducted sensitization program on how to stay safe by washing of our hands frequently and imbibed the use of the nose masks at large gatherings. However, Lagos state introduced a regulation whereby only 50 people were allowed to gather for any event of any sort and it announced a work from home directive for civil servants on salary grade level 14 and below in January 2021 in a reduce the spread of the virus in the state.
Also, Nigeria received its first COVID-19 vaccines in March 2021 consisting of about 4 million doses from COVAX, after which it received the second doses from the United States government, delivered through COVAX sharing facility.
So far, the country having over a population of 200 million persons has been able to administer at least 25,516,526 doses of COVID-19 vaccines, accounting for about 6.6% of the country’s population.
Dr. Faisal Shuaib expressed his gratitude to the Japanese government for the donations of the Solar Direct Drive Refrigerators where he said “We are particularly happy about the Solar Direct Drive (SDD) Refrigerators because of their advantages in independent and uninterrupted power source for vaccine storage.”
The Japanese Ambassador to Nigeria, Matsunaga Kazuyoshi sad the vaccines were donated to Nigeria to support the fight against COVID-19 in the country. Stating “the vaccine is the first Japanese vaccine to arrive in Sub-Saharan Africa, eradicating the vaccine hesitancy and increasing vaccination coverage.” He also noted that the fight against COVID-19 can only be won through increased vaccination of the citizens.
Keynotes
- The COVID-19 Pandemic is an outbreak that began in Wuhan, China in 2019 introduced to Nigeria in February 2020 caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).
- A number of variants ranging from the Alpha, Beta, Delta and the latest variant –Omicron, has identified the virus.
- On the 3rd of March 2022, 8 new confirmed cases were recorded in Nigeria.
- Until date, 254,606 cases have been confirmed, 249,154 cases have been discharged and 3,142 death cases have been recorded in the country.
- In Nigeria, about 25,516,526 doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered, accounting for about 6.6% of the country’s population
