Over fifty Percent Of Eligible Persons Vaccinated Against COVID-19 – NPHCDA

• Nigeria aims at vaccinating 40 per cent of its population before the end of 2021, and 70 per cent by the end of 2022 in order to achieve herd immunity

The Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Faisal Shuaib, on Friday, said that only about half of the ‘eligible’ Nigerians have been inoculated with the Oxford- AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.

Shuaib, while speaking at a press briefing, said the figure represents 1,071,346 people considered eligible to receive jabs of the vaccine.

This implies that those vaccinated are less than one percent of the country’s estimated 200 million population.

Read also: COVID-19: NCDC Records Zero Death For Fourth Consecutive Day, Confirms 67 New Cases

“As of today, April 16, 1,071,346 representing 53.2 per cent of the eligible persons targeted with the AstraZeneca vaccine have been administered their first dose in this vaccination phase.

“These are the people who have their information already uploaded on our database, while others are awaiting upload, potentially due to network problems and the high traffic of those coming in to take their shots at the same time,” he said.

Nigeria received 3.94 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines in early March with which it commenced vaccination, prioritising health workers, the elderly and top government officials.

As of 5pm on Friday April 16, the board reported that 1,081,548 (53.8%) persons have been vaccinated against the deadly virus.

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