The Federal Government has said that it will l launched the AstraZeneca/Oxford Covid vaccines beginning form Friday, March 5.

This was disclosed on Wednesday by the Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr Faisal Shuaib, in an interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme.

Recall that the government received 3.94 million doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine in Abuja on Tuesday, shipped via the COVAX Facility, a partnership between CEPI, Gavi, UNICEF and WHO.

The vaccines are coming a year after the country reported its first COVID-19 case in February 2020, an imported case from an Italian national to Lagos State.

Shuaib said, “On Friday, we are going to be launching the vaccines, we are going to be rolling them out at the treatment centres at the national hospital. Our priority will be the health workers that are frontline. We are going to be giving these vaccines to first responders.

Responding to questions on rumours that the vaccines are being allotted to the rich, Shuabi said, “I will tell you categorically that we have not allotted these vaccines to the rich people or to the people in the urban areas, absolutely not. Mr President has been very clear.

“…I will repeat it here again that the first set of people who are going to be taking these vaccines are those people who have sacrificed in the last one year taking care of all Nigerians that have come down with Covid-19. So, the frontline health workers.

“We are also going to be looking at people outside of the health sector who are at risk of getting Covid-19. We are going to be looking at those strategic leaders like Mr President and the Vice-President, those people who will also want to take the vaccines publicly so that they can motivate the followers to take the vaccines, to convince them that the vaccines are very safe.”

He enjoined Nigerians who wish to receive the vaccines to register on the website of the NPHCDA, adding that over 2.3 million Nigerians have registered in the past few hours.