Several states on Tuesday confirmed that they received consignments of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine with Lagos leading the allocation pack with 507,000 doses.
In a statement made by the Lagos Commissioner for Information, Gbenga Omotoso, the vaccine had immediately been transferred to the state cold chain facilities for safe storage and inventory management.
“The first consignment of 507,000 Astra Zeneca COVID-19 COVAX vaccine provided by the Federal Government arrived in Lagos at 5.00am today. The vaccine doses have been transferred from the airport to our state cold chain facilities for safe storage and inventory management.
“The Federal Government Phase 1 rollout plan, which is targeting frontline and essential personnel, will be communicated in the next few days. Additional consignments are expected.
“Details of the vaccine rollout will be clearly articulated to the public by the Incident Commander, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who has inaugurated a multi-stakeholder COVID-19 Vaccine Access and Distribution Committee chaired by the Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi,” he reassured.
The Federal Capital Territory Administration has also be identified as recipient of the second largest consignment with about 219, 800 doses, closely followed by Katsina State which confirmed that it received about 160,000.
According to the acting Secretary, FCTA Health and Human Services Secretariat, Dr. Mohammed Kawu, the doses are presently in their cold store.
“The vaccine doses allocated to the FCT are 219, 800. The vaccine doses are in our cold store and we do not have any issue with our level of preparedness. We have trained our vaccinators,” he said.
Although Katsina State Executive Secretary of the Primary Health Care Agency, Dr Yahaya Shamsudeen, disclosed that the state would receive its allocation next week, a top official of the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency told our correspondent that between 150,000 and 160,000 doses would be given to the state.
Yahaya, however, said the state had begun the training of health workers.
But the NPHCDA official, who confided in The PUNCH, stated, “ Based on the number of the frontline health workers and others that the state sent to Abuja, the state is to receive between 150,000 and 160,000 doses and this will be anytime next week.”
In other states, Nasarawa received a consignment of 61,000 doses; Ekiti 52,960 and Ondo 75,570.
Recall that the Federal Government on Tuesday last week received 3.94 million doses of the vaccine from COVAX facility, an initiative co-led by the Vaccine Alliance, GAVI and the World Health Organisation.
