The US has donated 3.6 million doses of the Pfizer Inc/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine to Nigeria. — Reuters pic
ABUJA, Oct 15 – The United States has donated 3.6 million doses of the Pfizer Inc/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine to Nigeria, two months after it shipped Moderna Inc vaccines to Africa’s most-populous nation, a local television station reported yesterday.
Faisal Shuaib, who heads Nigeria’s National Primary Health Care Development Agency, said on October 5 the country had confirmation that it would receive 3.57 million doses of Pfizer vaccines within the next two weeks.
The shipment arrived yesterday at the airport in the capital, Abuja, AIT Television reported. Nigerian and US health authorities could not immediately be reached for comment.
In August, Nigeria received 4 million doses of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccines donated by the US government.
The West African country has been exploring options to acquire or purchase vaccines through the COVAX facility to enable it to inoculate at least 70 per cent of its population.
About 2.3 per cent of Nigerians or 2.54 million people have been fully vaccinated as of Thursday, while 4.7 per cent of the population have received at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine.
Nigeria, which has not tested widely for Covid-19, has so far recorded 208,404 confirmed infections and 2,761 deaths from the virus.
It received 501,600 doses of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine from the French government last week and 434,400 doses of Johnson and Johnson’s vaccine from the African Union. – Reuters