The United States Embassy has received 2.5 million Pfizer vaccine doses in Abuja, which were presented to the National Primary Health Care Development Agency for cold storage.
The vaccines will be distributed to over 3,000 health facilities across the country.
The mission in a statement on Thursday, titled, ‘US donates additional 2.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Nigeria this week,’ said the vaccines would be available at major markets, shopping malls, event centres, motor parks, airports, places of employment, and religious institutions as part of Nigeria’s mass vaccination campaign.
It said, “To date, the United States has donated more than 13.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine in partnership with COVAX, or bilaterally to Nigeria.
“Additionally, the United States has provided more than $119 million in COVID-19 related health assistance. This includes a 40-bed mobile field hospital, ventilators and related training for 88 hospitals, personal protective equipment, technical assistance for vaccine readiness, risk communication and demand generation for vaccines, conducting an epidemiological COVID-19 detection and vaccine hesitancy survey, setting up electronic record systems, rapid response teams, training for over 200,000 military and civilian personnel on COVID-19 control measures, and technology for virtual training.”
In addition, the US said it had also leveraged the PEPFAR-supported National Integrated Specimen Referral Network and laboratory investments to support the expansion of the 153 molecular laboratory network nationwide.
The mission quoted the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, who noted earlier this month that “the COVID-19 pandemic won’t end for any country until it ends for all countries.
“Otherwise, the virus will keep replicating around the world, people will keep getting sick and dying, and we won’t be able to safely reopen our economies or travel around the world for business and tourism the way we used to. That’s why the United States is committed to helping end the pandemic in Nigeria and everywhere.”
The US expressed its commitment to donate more than one billion vaccine doses around the world, by early 2022 and in African countries primarily through the COVAX initiative.
Meanwhile, the Africa regional office of the World Health Organisation on Thursday said that the omicron variant was reaching more countries in Africa. This is as the health body in a statement it released stated that “Weekly COVID-19 cases in the continent surged by 93 per cent”.
According to the statement, Africa recorded 107,000 cases in the week ending on December 5, 2021 which was a sharp increase from the 55,000 cases reported in the previous week.
“Research is being intensified to determine whether the Omicron is fuelling the surge in cases seen in Africa. With the end of the year travel and festivities upon us, limited vaccination, rising COVID-19 cases and the new variant paint an ominous picture for our region”, The WHO regional director for Africa, Dr. Moeti Mathshidiodo was quoted in the statement
Meanwhile, analysis of the daily COVID-19 reports released by the NCDC has revealed that a total of 1,072 cases have been logged in the country, ten days after the announcement of the omicron variant in the country.
The country reports that the cases peaked on December 9, 2021 when the number of cases reported was disclosed as 268. On November 21, 2021, Nigeria reported a total of 21 cases, the lowest number of cases logged within the period under analysis.
