The National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) says Nigeria will stick with the AstraZeneca vaccine based on the epidemiological and equity assessment done by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Faisal Shuaib, executive director of NPHCDA, who spoke during the briefing of the presidential taskforce (PTF) on COVID-19 on Monday, said Nigeria is yet to find the South African variant of COVID-19 in its population and will continue with plans to distribute the AstraZeneca vaccine.
He said the replacement of the initial 100,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine with the AstraZeneca vaccine will enable a wider reach and also a better option of using “our routine cold chain system”.
“As earlier communicated, Nigeria is no longer expecting the 100,000 doses of the Pfizer/BIONtech vaccine through the COVAX facility but has been allocated about 16 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine,” he said.
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“This was based on epidemiological and equity assessment done by WHO. These vaccines will be arriving in batches, starting by late February.
“Replacement of the initial 100,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine with 16 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine is in fact a welcome development as it will enable a wider reach of our population and is a better option using our routine cold chain system, though we still have an ultracold chain capacity that would have been able to store more than 400,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine.”
According to Shuaib, Nigeria is not ahead of countries like South Africa in terms of mortality or incident rate of COVID-19.
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He said the authorities were examining test samples for the South African strain and subjecting samples from travellers returning from the United Kingdom and South Africa to further genomic sequencing.
He said: “We will continue to work with regulators to ensure that only a vaccine that is effective against the predominant COVID-19 strain in Nigeria will be administered.
“As you may be aware, South African Government has suspended vaccination with the Oxford/Astrazeneca vaccine in response to findings from a study which showed that the vaccine was less efficacious against the B.1.351 strain of the COVID-19 virus which is the predominant strain in South Africa.
“The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, working with Nigeria Institute of Medical Research and others, will intensify search for this strain from samples collected.
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“In the meantime, we will continue to work with NAFDAC to ensure that only a vaccine which is effective against the predominant COVID-19 strain in Nigeria will be administered.”
Nigeria also hopes to get 42 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine offered by the African Union AVATT platform to cover 45 percent of its population.
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