Nigerian health personnel began administering the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to the general public on Monday, in an effort to safeguard the country’s population from an outbreak of illnesses.
According to Africa CDC, the continent’s most populous nation has only been able to vaccinate only 1.23 percent of its people while infection rates continue to rise due to the extremely contagious Delta type.
Commenting on the effectiveness of the vaccine,Saad Ahmed, a virologist said, “One, it helps to prevent infections but even if one gets infected, then the impact of that infection is likely to be much less than somebody who has not been vaccinated at all. So, we have all seen COVID-19 and the numbers that are been rolled out, the mortality figures and what have you, so definitely we need the vaccination.”
Nigeria, which has a population of over 210 million people, received 4 million Moderna pills from the United States earlier this month.
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control’s Director General, Chikwe Ihekweazu, says a lot of work has gone into getting the populace vaccinated.
“We depend on an incredible groups of Nigerians that have been working hard for the last eighteen-months to deliver vaccines, to test people, to do contact tracing, to treat individuals. Our treatment centres are filling up again, health workers are working through the nights everyday making sure they save Nigerians.”
More than 29 million Johnson & Johnson pills acquired by the government through the African Union are expected to arrive soon.
Educator, writer and legal researcher at Alafarika for Studies and Consultancy.