The Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire had yesterday disclosed that the Nigerian government will receive 10million doses of coronavirus vaccine by March. Although the minister did not state which brand of the vaccine would be deployed to Nigeria, he confirmed that the said 10million would be added to the 100,000 Pfizer vaccine that was earlier stated.
Ehanire did not reveal who would finance the 10million vaccine he stated, however, some officials were speculating that it may be part of the contribution of the African Union (AU) to Nigeria as part of the COVAX, an arrangement made by the World Health Organisation (WHO) with the third world countries for the delivery of the vaccine.
Nigeria, a country with an estimated population of 200 million people with so far reported about 104,000 cases of the coronavirus out of which 1,382 persons have died.
Although others are of the opinion that the cases were underreported since the testing capacity is low compared to the country’s population.
Coupled with the second wave of the pandemic that sweeps since the end of November last year especially in Lagos being the most densely populated city in the country, a sharp increase in the cases has been recorded.
A variant strain of the pandemic has been discovered recently, but it is not yet clear whether it is the most deadly or not.
The Nigerian authority has promised to vaccinate 40% of the population before the end of the year.
However, challenges of distribution and storage have remained the biggest challenge considering the medicine requires the extreme cold temperature to be stored, and coupled with the epileptic power supply it has put the authorities on their toes.
