Contrary to rumours in certain quarters, the Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr. Faisal Shuaib, has clarified that no single of dose of COVID-19 vaccine expired in Nigeria.
He made the clarification while responding to questions at a media briefing in Abuja, Tuesday.
According to him: “There is no vaccine that expired in Nigeria. We still have enough room in terms of the expiring dates for the vaccines.
“We had vaccines that would have expired on July 29, but we have utilised them well ahead of the expiring date.
“If there is a question on why some vaccines where taken from states, the reason is that there were some states that had large absorbing capacity, they had population that needed additional dosses.”
He further revealed that: “Part of the reason for the success of our COVID-19 roll out in Nigeria is the fact that we used data.
“We looked at the data and looked at the absorption, the roll out capacity across the states and were able to manage our stock.
“It was not the matter of sharing the vaccines equally across the states. We looked at the data, we looked at the epidemiology and make sure that those states and local governments that were more likely to have an outbreak of the disease they eventually had more of the vaccines.”
Shuaib, has revealed that the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine has 88% effectiveness against the Delta Variant of COVID-19.
He noted that: “The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine that we used in Nigeria is going to be, at least, 88 per cent effective against the Delta variant.
“So far, what the studies have shown is that the Delta variant has very minimal vaccine properties against the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine. So we are in a good place in terms of effectiveness of the vaccine that is used against the Delta Variant.”
The NPHCDA Executive Director, however, cautioned that: “This does not mean that because you have taken two doses of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine we can to go town without observing social distancing or hand hygiene.
“We still need those non pharmaceutical measures to protect ourselves and our loved ones from the Covid-19 .
“Again, we have been very clear about the fact that the evidence that we have is that the vaccine protects against the severe illness, against hospitalization and against mortality.
“Even with the vaccine it is still possible to have a mild form of the disease and it is still possible for one to transmit the virus.
“This is why it is important for us to continue to wear our face mask, observe social distancing and observe more hygiene while we continue to gather more information about the nature of the vaccine that we are using for the very first time.”
Dr. Shuiab, further disclosed that the country will receive 41,282,770 million dosses of COVID-19 vaccines between the end of this month and September ending.
According to him: “3,924,000 doses of Oxford/AstraZeneca/Moderna will arrive by end of July or early August 2021 from the COVAX facility; 3,930,910 doses of Pfizer-Bio-N Tech/Moderna COVID-19 vaccine in August from the COVAX facility donated by the United States Government ; 3,577,860 doses of Pfizer-Bio-N Tech/Moderna COVID-19 vaccine in Q3 from the COVAX facility and 29,850,000 doses of Johnson & Johnson (Jassen) COVID-19 vaccine by the end of September, that will arrive in batches from the African Union Commission.”
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