COVID-19: Distribution of Vaccines to Occur in Four Phases

As we await the arrival of vaccines against Covid-19, the Nigerian government has begun arrangements on how it would be distributed to Nigerians. In an interview with Channels TV at weekend, the Director of Infectious Disease Control and Immunisation at the Nigeria Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHCDA), Bassey Okposen, explained that distribution would occur after approval by the National Agency for Food and Drugs Control, NAFDAC.

The first batch of COVID-19 vaccines to be received by Nigeria will be administered to Nigerians at no cost (free of charge) and in four phases. The first phase would be administered in Quarter 1(Q1), the second phase would be in Q2, the third phase in Q3, and the fourth phase would be in Q4.

At each of the vaccination centers, they would be an active surveillance site ongoing, and there is a follow-up plan on what people would do at the point of vaccination and after being vaccinated. The government target is to immunize 70% of Nigerians, between this year and 2022, and that translates to 149.6 million Nigerians.

So we would have vaccines that would be coming from different companies that would pass through the NAFDAC test before given to Nigerians. And the interval between the first and the second doses would depend on the manufacturer’s guidelines.

The Director – General of NAFDAC, Mojisola Adeyeye would go on to disclose that distribution would commence once received from the manufacturing company adding that the process of reviewing the vaccines would take seven days.