Nigeria yet to report adverse events from AstraZeneca vaccine –NPHCDA

The National Primary Health Care Development Agency has not received any official report of serious adverse effects from the 215,277 people who have received the first doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines.

The NPHCDA Executive Director, Dr. Faisal Shuaib, disclosed this on the agency’s official Twitter handle @NphcdaNG on Wednesday.

“As you are aware, AstraZeneca/Oxford COVID-19 vaccines have been distributed to all states except Kogi and the first phase of our vaccination focusing on frontline health workers and others on essential duties have begun in earnest,” he said.

He said that the 215, 277 vaccinated people were from 32 states and the Federal Capital Territory.

Faisal also said that no vaccination has been recorded in Kebbi, Zamfara, and Oyo states.

“Kogi is yet to receive vaccines because its cold chains for the preservation of the vaccines are under repair,” he said.

The agency said that the proportion of Nigerians vaccinated is 5.5 per cent.

The executive director said that Nigeria proposes to vaccinate 70 per cent of the eligible population by 2022 to reach herd immunity and exit the pandemic.

The agency stated that five states have the highest number of vaccination with Lagos getting 58,461, followed by Bauchi with 23,827, Jigawa – 20,800 , Ogun – 19,257 and Kaduna -14,527.

It noted that the state with the lowest vaccination figure were Ebonyi with 77 followed by Sokoto- 98 and Akwa Ibom with 127.

The FCT where the vaccination exercise was launched has 8, 616 people vaccinated.

NAN, reports that Nigeria took delivery of nearly four million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine as part of an overall 16 million doses planned to be delivered to the country in batches over the next few months.

The vaccines are being provided by COVAX, an unprecedented global effort to ensure equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines.

COVAX aims to deliver over 1.3 billion vaccine doses to over 90 low- and middle-income countries by the end of the year, covering up to 20% of their populations.

The country also received 300,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines from MTN Nigeria.

Upon arrival, all vaccine samples were handed to NAFDAC, the Nigerian food and drug regulatory agency, for further examination.
Source: Punch