Nigeria Makes N13.4bn Part Payment for J&J Vaccines

By Adedapo Adesanya

The federal government has made a 15 per cent deposit for the procurement of the 29 million doses of the Johnson and Johnson (J&J) COVID-19 vaccines which costs $7.50 each.

By evaluation, this means Nigeria has paid about N13.4 billion ($32.6 million) out of the total value – N89.4 billion ($217.5 million), using an exchange rate of N411/$1 of the interbank segment, which is the window for government transactions.

At a briefing in Abuja on Tuesday, the Chief Executive Officer of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr Faisal Shuaib, disclosed that the country will be taking the delivery of the vaccines today.

According to him, the Ministry of Finance opted for the purchase of the J&J vaccines to cut down on multiple trips and save costs.

Speaking further, the NPHCD boss said Nigeria is expected to receive 176,000 doses of the J&J vaccine which is a single-shot vaccine.

He said the single-shot J&J vaccine, like the AstraZeneca, is safe and efficient against the coronavirus disease, including the deadlier Delta variant.

It is expected to boost Nigeria’s COVID-19 fight with the Delta variant sparking fears of a third wave of the pandemic.

He also confirmed that next Monday, August 16, is the new official rollout date for the second batch of the inoculation exercise.

The second phase of the vaccination exercise had earlier been scheduled to begin on Tuesday, but it was postponed due to “unforeseen circumstances,” according to a spokesperson in the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Mr Willie Bassey.

As of Tuesday, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) recorded 610 new cases of COVID-19, higher than the 422 new cases of Monday.

Lagos maintained the lead with 281 cases, followed by Rivers (152), Akwa Ibom (81), Ogun (21), Oyo (21), Ekiti (14) and Federal Capital Territory (FCT) (13). Two COVID-19-related deaths were recorded within 24 hours.

So far, a total of 179,118 cases have been confirmed, 166,131 patients have recovered, while 2,194 deaths have been recorded in 36 states, including the FCT.

A total of 2.53 million Nigerians have, however, taken the first dose of the vaccine, while 1.404 million have been fully vaccinated.