The Federal Government has announced the reopening of the administration of the first dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine across the country with effect from Tuesday.
This follows series of requests from Nigerians who were yet to be vaccinated before the official closing of the administration of the first dose on May 24, 2021.
This disclosure was made by the Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr Faisal Shuaib, while speaking to the press on Tuesday in Abuja at a briefing to update Nigerians on the status of Covid-19 vaccination.
In his statement, Shuaib said, “Recall that we officially closed the vaccination for the first dose on May 24, 2021. Since then, we have been inundated with requests by Nigerians to be vaccinated. In response, we have decided to reopen the vaccination for the first dose from today.
“This means anyone 18 years and above who has not been vaccinated should visit the nearest vaccination site for the first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine.”
Shuaib explained that such persons would be due to receive their second dose of the vaccine in 12 weeks, adding that Nigeria would have received the next consignment of vaccines.
While disclosing that the agency had administered 1,978,808 and 680,345 first and second doses of the vaccine respectively, the NPHCDA boss urged all Nigerians who had received the first dose to check their vaccination cards for the date of the second dose.
He asked them to ensure that they received the second dose between 6 and 12 weeks from the date they took the first dose, to gain full protection against the COVID-19 virus.
Shuaib said, “I, therefore, urge all Nigerians who have received their first dose at least six weeks ago to visit the nearest vaccination site to receive their second dose, for full protection against COVID-19 on or before June 25 when we shall close the administration of the second dose.”
It can be recalled that Nigeria received about 4 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from the COVAX initiative out of the expected 16 million doses.
NPHCDA had said that Nigeria was expecting about 40 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine from the African Union (AU) very soon. The country has, so far, received about 4.1 million doses of the vaccine.
The Federal Government had earlier said it planned to vaccinate 109 million people against the Covid-19 virus over a period of 2 years.
