The National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) has said that Nigeria is maintaining a clean slate on COVID-19 vaccination death and has made tremendous progress on the ongoing vaccination against the virus.
The Executive Director, Faisal Shuaib, who stated this while updating Nigerians on the status of COVID-19 in Abuja on Tuesday, said the indication further confirmed the fact that COVID-19 vaccines are safe.
Shuaib, however, hinted that the second and booster doses are critical to achieving high protection against the virus especially as it keeps mutating
According to him, “As you are aware, Nigeria introduced booster dose of COVID-19 vaccine on the 10th of December 2021, following the recommendation by WHO for people who have received two doses of AstraZeneca, Moderna, Pfizer Bio-N-Tech or one dose of Johnson & Johnson vaccines. In line with his exemplary leadership style, President Muhammadu Buhari received his booster dose of COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday the 21st of December 2021. So far, 416,980 Nigerians have received their booster dose. Again, this is a clear indication that many more Nigerians are determined to achieve maximum protection against COVID-19.
“As you are aware, as the holiday season approached, we began to see an increase in the number of cases not just in Nigeria but also globally. In Nigeria, several unvaccinated individuals were migrating from the cities to the rural areas and back to the cities.
“Globally, we saw the emergence of new variants such as IHU variant in France which is said to have 46 mutations, Deltacron in Cyprus and the Omicron variant still being highly infectious with a BA.2 subvariant rapidly spreading. More of our citizens were coming down with the infection. Luckily for our vaccinated population, those who came down with the COVID-19 infection had mild symptoms which they managed at home due to the immunity the vaccination provided them. If they were not vaccinated, we cannot predict how these cases would have turned out. Vaccination prevents you from severe disease, hospitalization and death.
“The reason for the emergence of these variants, is because there is still a large proportion of the eligible population who have not yet been vaccinated and this has given the virus time to mutate and fight back. It is important that we protect ourselves and our loved ones by getting the jab. Our vaccination exercise was expanded to enable all eligible persons have easier access. All vaccination sites are open to eligible persons, 18 years and above for first, second and booster doses. We call on Nigerians to avail themselves of this opportunity in the on-going mass vaccination exercise to get vaccinated against COVID-19.”
He maintained that “We would also like to inform the general public that in this phase of COVID-19 mass vaccination we plan to integrate the campaign with childhood immunization and other PHC services. What this simply means is that alongside the COVID-19 vaccines, childhood vaccines will also be available at COVID-19 vaccination sites.”
