By Deborah Hassan
The Executive Director/Chief Executive Officer of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA),Dr. Faisal Shuaib, has disclosed that the Federal Government has settled for Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine for Nigerians.
He explained that it made the choice because of availability of facilities needed for its storage. The Federal Government had earlier said it would not purchase vaccines that require ultra-cooling facilities, thus striking out the Pfizer vaccine from the list of considerations.
Faisal explained that the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine could be stored in a facility with temperature +2 to +8 degree Celsius for a long period without losing potency.
He added that the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) would first assess and certify the vaccine to be safe before it will be administered.
“For us, this is the paramount consideration and no vaccine will be administered to Nigerians until and unless NAFDAC goes through the process of making sure that all of the documentation is right and it is contextualised within the Nigerian environment,” he stated.
Speaking more on the issue, he added, “In Nigeria, as I speak, almost every single political ward has one freezer that can keep these vaccines at the right temperature.
“Only about 700 political wards do not have this type of equipment, and we are hopeful that if we keep installing them at the pace that we want to, hopefully by the end of this year, we will be able to finish installing, so that in every single political ward, we have the right equipment to be able to store our routine immunisation vaccines, including the COVID-19 vaccines at + 2 to +8 degree Celsius.
“At this point, we have information from the COVAX facility that Nigeria will be getting up to 100,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccines in February. But ahead of those shipments, we have already made sure that the ultra-chain equipment that is required to keep these vaccines in temperatures of -70 degrees Celsius are available in-country.
“We are also working with the sub-national levels to make sure that when these vaccines are transported to the states and council areas, we will be able to make sure that the transportation takes place in a way that ensures that the vaccines remain and retain their potency.”