As at 21st February 2022, only 6.9% of the eligible population have been fully vaccinated in Nigeria.
The vaccine administration data from the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) revealed that about 15 out of every 100 eligible persons (15.4%) have received the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine.
Individuals aged 18 and above are the eligible population allowed to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. This represents a total of 17,199,853 people.
Having received the first dose, it is expected to be followed with a second dose after at least a three week interval. However, less than half 7,663,560 (44.6%) of those who have received the first dose have actually received the second dose.
The first dispatch of COVID-19 vaccine arrived in Nigeria in March 2021. Yet, Nigeria is far from the targets set WHO for 2021 targets. It was expected by WHO that at least 40% of its eligible population were to be fully vaccinated by the end of 2021 .
Only about 15.4% of the population have received the first dose and just 6.9% have been fully vaccinated.
Low vaccination turnout across the country
Data shows that most states in the country record low vaccination turnout with few states standing out. Jigawa, Kano, Lagos, Nasarawa and Ogun are the states with the highest record of first dose recipients. These states make up 43.2% of the total number of first dose recipients.
Lagos, Kano, Jigawa, Nasarawa and Ogun are the top 5 states with the highest number of fully vaccinated citizens.
With the emergence and spread of the Omicron variant, the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has recorded a total of 254,352 confirmed cases, 230,846 discharged cases and 3142 deaths as at February 22, 2022 across all states in Nigeria including the Federal Capital Territory.
Despite the increase in the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths, vaccinations against COVID-19 have continued since March 5,2021. Vaccination against COVID-19 in Nigeria began on March 5, 2021 after about four million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines were received from COVAX to help achieve COVAX’s aim.
As a means to boost vaccine production capacity in low- and middle-income countries, Nigeria and 5 other countries, Egypt,Kenya,Senegal,South Africa and Tunisia were recently announced by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the first African countries to receive technology from the global mRNA technology transfer center. This will help Africa produce its own vaccines by facilitating and supporting knowledge transfer of mRNA vaccine platforms to fight against COVID-19 and other diseases.
As a result of the negative effects of the COVID-19 virus, the vaccines have been formulated in a bid to significantly improve population immunity internationally by protecting people everywhere from the disease,restoring the health system and reducing the risks of new variants.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has set up a global COVID-19 vaccination strategy to vaccinate 70% of the world’s population against COVID-19 by mid-2022. There have been interim targets set by WHO to achieve 10% full vaccination coverage in all countries by the end of September 2021, and 40% coverage by the end of 2021.