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April 7, 2021

Nigeria takes delivery Of 100,000 more AstraZeneca vaccines from India

Uganda will import five million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines next month after the discovery of new COVID-19 variants in the country, President Yoweri Museveni has said. In a televised address to the nation late Friday, Museveni said the vaccines will be used to vaccinate at least 80 per cent of the 5.5 million elderly. People below 50 years, with underlying medical conditions that are at high risk of contracting the novel coronavirus, will also be vaccinated. Uganda targets to vaccinate more than 21.9 million people who face the highest risk of the infection, including the health workers, teachers, social workers and security personnel, elderly and those with underlying medical conditions. “The government is working hard to ensure we bring another five million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine before the end of May to complete the threshold vaccination and ensure that those vaccinated before getting the second booster dose,’’ said Museveni. “Vaccines are the most effective intervention we have against COVID-19. “The government and partners are working hard to bring vaccines to most adult Ugandans to protect them and to support us to reopen the economy and get back all our children to school.’’ Henry Mwebesa, Director-General of Health Services, last week said Uganda is scheduled to receive some two million more doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines in May through the COVAX facility. Uganda has so far received 964,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines from the COVAX vaccine sharing programme and the Indian government. As of April 16, a total of 220,893 people had been inoculated with the first jab of AstraZeneca vaccine against COVID-19, according to the Ministry of Health statistics. The country has reported the emergence of the highly transmissible COVID-19 variants which were first reported in Britain, South Africa and Nigeria. The ministry’s data showed that as of April 16, Uganda had registered a cumulative total of 41,340 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 40,898 recoveries and 338 deaths.

By Victoria Ojeme

The federal government on Tuesday said an additional 100,000 doses of the Oxford/Astrazeneca vaccine has been received from India.

Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, Boss Mustapha made the announcement during a press briefing in Abuja.

A consignment of 100,000 doses of Covishield vaccines has been donated  by the Government of India to Nigeria. These 100,000 doses of vaccines, manufactured at the Serum Institute of India, Pune, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturing facility, arrived at the Abuja airport from Mumbai via Addis Ababa on 26 March 2021 at 1200 hrs.

The consignment was delivered to the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) by the High Commission of India.

The Covishield vaccine manufactured at the Serum Institute of India is the first COVID-19 vaccine approved by NAFDAC, Nigeria. Its first lot of 3.92 million doses of vaccines under COVAX had reached Nigeria on 2 March 2021. The bilateral donation of 100,000 doses of Covishield vaccines is in fulfilment of the announcement made by the High Commissioner of India at that time.

On the occasion, High Commissioner Abhay Thakur stated that the supply of vaccines to Nigeria is in keeping with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s commitment, made at the UNGA in September 2020, that ‘India’s vaccine production and delivery capacity will be used to help humanity in fighting Covid19.’

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He added that these supplies of Made in India vaccines to Nigeria is in  keeping with India’s longstanding, age-old andtime-tested ties with Nigeria, based  on close friendship and deep mutual trust.

India has been at the forefront of the global fight against the pandemic and supports a collective approach in this battle. Guided by this philosophy, and as the pharmacy of the world, India, and under its ‘Vaccine Maitri’ initiative (Maitri  means Friendship), has supplied millions of doses of vaccines to many countries  spread across the globe.

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