The long anticipated COVID-19 vaccines were delivered to Nigeria on Tuesday, March 2. The 3.93 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines are part of a total of 16 million doses apportioned to Nigeria by the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Assess (COVAX) Facility of the African Union, with the balance expected to be delivered in the coming months. These vaccines will be replacing the initial 100,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines which the Nigerian Government announced that it was expecting by February 2021.
Nigeria and Kenya were billed to receive the COVAX Facility vaccines on the same day. Nigeria is the third West African country after Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire to receive the COVAX vaccines. COVAX, one of the three pillars of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, backed by the World Health Organisation (WHO), is aimed at distributing about two billion doses of vaccines across 92 low and middle-income countries.
The Federal Government has stated that it expects to receive doses of other types of vaccines, to cater to Nigerians. However, it is unclear from where and when the Nigerian government plans to procure enough vaccines to cater to all eligible persons within its population of 200 million people. Last weekend, South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa had announced a programme of COVID vaccination for citizens of his country, indicating how South Africa will receive close to 40 million doses of COVID vaccines, putting out specific details of locations from which these vaccines will be administered. Nigerians point to this as evidence of seriousness of a government that intends to tackle the COVID pandemic, and worry that their own government appears unserious with the matter.
The Federal Ministry of Health, on Monday, March 1, launched a 5-point T.E.A.C.H. strategy for deployment of the vaccines. The strategy is described as combining the traditional method of vaccinating the target population using available data sources, electronic self-registration for health workers and the public, assisted electronic registration, concomitant e-registration during walk-in visits to designated health facilities, in addition to house-to-house registration. Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire speaking at the launch of the strategy, stated that priority will be given to frontline healthcare workers in the deployment of the vaccines. He added that the government’s goal is to introduce the vaccine in a phased and equitable manner, and ultimately vaccinating all eligible Nigerians (18 years and above) within the next two years. It will be recalled that the World Health Organisation (WHO) advised all countries to limit vaccination to persons above 18 years for the time being, until research and studies are completed on any possible effect on growing children.
The Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr. Faisal Shuaib speaking at the joint national briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 on Monday, March 1, stated that the vaccines would be administered in four phases. In the first phase, health workers and other frontline workers are expected to receive the vaccine. Also, strategic leaders such as the President, Vice President, ministers, governors, religious and traditional leaders are expected to receive the vaccine at this stage to boost public confidence. In the second phase, adults aged 50 years and above and those with co-morbidities aged 18-49 years will receive the vaccine, while phase three will focus on persons in States and Local Government Areas with high disease burden who miss the first two phases. The fourth phase will focus on all other eligible persons, as more vaccines become available. To facilitate the administration of the vaccines, the Federal Government also launched the Electronic Management of Immunisation Data (EMID) system, an e-registration platform for eligible individuals who are interested in taking the vaccine.