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| President Muhammad Buhari The president of Republic of Nigeria |
As the pandemic of Covid-19 keeps on giving much pressure to people around the universe there is a sign of relief as companies are coming up with various types of vaccines that the World Health Organization is approving.
Africa has been one of the beneficiaries on the list that the WHO has released for the first phase delivery of the vaccines.
Surprisingly, one big country is missing on the list as per announcement made by the WHO Director for African Chapter.
According to WHO Regional Director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, Nigeria was disqualified based on the country’s inability to meet the standard requirements of being able to store the vaccines at the required -70 degrees Celsius.
Nigeria had indicated interest in being supplied the vaccine being donated by COVAX, a global alliance against COVID-19.
Last week, Chairman of Nigeria Governors’ Forum, Kayode Fayemi, had said the country has been working with the World Bank to ensure that the storage should be made by the time of delivery.
But at a press conference on COVID-19, Moeti said only four African countries were captured in the first supply of 320,000 vaccines.
In addition, around 320,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine have been allocated to four African countries: Cabo Verde, Rwanda, South Africa and Tunisia. Deliveries are also expected later on in February.
“To access an initial limited volume of Pfizer vaccine, countries were invited to submit proposals. Thirteen African countries expressed an interest in participating in the initiative, and their proposals were evaluated based on current mortality rates, new cases and trends and capacities to deliver this vaccine, including to store it at minus 70 degrees Celsius.
“I have to say that this was a challenging process as we know all countries want to start vaccinating their populations. The supplies were limited but we are glad that we will have a number of countries start and we look forward to working with the other countries to expand this vaccine delivery.”
Countries across the world have been vaccinating their citizens against the disease but not a single dose of the vaccine has been administered in Nigeria.
According to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), the country has recorded about 138,000 COVID cases out of which 1,640 patients have died.
Despite the deliveries of the vaccine, the first of it was witnessed in South Africa where after it was tested by medical experts discovered that the vaccine can only be effective with only 22% of healing the pandemic.
The vaccine Administration has since been stopped in South Africa and further announcements to be made later.
