Nigeria will get 4 Million Doses of Covid 19 vaccine on Tuesday – SGF

Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Mr Boss Mustapha, said Nigeria will receive the first tranche of COVID-19 vaccines on Tuesday, 2nd of March.

Mr Boss Mustapha also the Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, disclose this on Saturday in Abuja while evaluating the country’s fight against the disease.

“They (vaccines) should depart India on March 1, 2021, in the night and arrive in Abuja on the 2nd of March, 2021, ” he said.

Nigeria is set to receive its first four million shipments of COVID-19 vaccines from COVAX, a global scheme set up to procure and distribute vaccines for free, as the world races to contain the coronavirus pandemic.

COVAX, which was set up in April 2020 to help ensure a fairer distribution of coronavirus vaccines between the rich and poor nations, said it would deliver two billion doses to member-states by the end of 2021.

Nigeria’s four million vaccines would be its first COVID-19 vaccines from the COVAX facility.

The facility promised access to vaccines for up to 20 percent of participating countries’ populations with an initial supply beginning in the first quarter of 2021 to inoculate three percent of their populations.

The Nigerian government had earlier announced that the first four million doses of the vaccines would arrive in the country by the end of February.

The SGF disclosed that the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) would be organising the shipment from Mumbai, India, with the World Health Organisation (WHO).