Covid-19 vaccination: FG targets 56.6 million eligible Nigerians by end of Q1 2022

The Federal Government has revealed that it has a target to reach 56.6 million (50%) eligible Nigerians by Q1 2022 and has acknowledged that it is far from this target.

This was disclosed by Boss Mustapha, Secretary to the Government of the Federation and head of the Presidential Covid Committee at the 2022 Primary Healthcare Summit.

He added that with the launch of the SCALES 2.0 strategy by the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, COVID-19 vaccination sites are now accessible at both private and public primary, secondary and tertiary health facilities.

What Mr Mustapha is saying

The SGF noted that a major turnaround on the control of the pandemic was achieved in December 2020, when the first dose of a fully tested vaccine – manufactured by Pfizer/Bio- was administered in the United Kingdom.

He added that the NPHCDA received its first shipment of 3.92million doses of the Astra Zeneca Vaccine through the COVAX Facility in March 2021 and the first Nigerian was vaccinated on March 2nd.

“We have a target to reach 56.6m (50%) eligible Nigerians by Q1 2022 and we are far from this target.

“With the launch of the SCALES 2.0 strategy by NPHCDA, COVID 19 vaccination sites are now accessible at both private and public primary, secondary and tertiary health facilities as well as mass vaccination sites such as markets, airports and worship centres.

“With a strengthened and improved health system, we are confident that Nigeria will exit the pandemic with a strengthened health system that will be able to resist shocks caused by disease outbreaks and other mutating variants of the COVID-19 virus,” he said.

The NPHCDA revealed last week that 11,031,267 Nigerians are fully vaccinated, which is 9/9% of the proportion vaccinated.