Federal Government has received additional 1,233,200 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine for COVID-19 vaccination in the country.
As reported by Daily Trust, the Executive Director, National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Faisal Shuaib, told reporters in Abuja that the latest shipments were received late last Saturday through the AVATT platform, coordinated by the African Union Commission, as part of the 39,800,000 doses procured by the government.
He said as of Monday, a total of 3,600,858 eligible Nigerians had received their 1st dose of COVID-19 vaccine.
He said of this number 2,551,738 persons were vaccinated with AstraZeneca vaccine and 1,049,120 persons were vaccinated with Moderna vaccine.
Furthermore, Shuaib said there had been questions raised about a few vaccinated individuals where COVID-19 infection occurred in those who had received the vaccination more than 14 days prior called breakthrough infection.
Therefore, to achieve herd immunity against COVID-19, Nigeria had set an ambitious goal of vaccinating 40 per cent of its over 200 million population before the end of 2021, and 70 per cent by the end of 2022.
He said: “The observation is that in these individuals, the disease is usually milder than those who were unvaccinated. Vaccination prevents one from severe disease, hospitalization and death. If our communities continue to remain unvaccinated, we will keep endangering our citizens most especially those who are vulnerable, elderly or immunocompromised.”