Nigeria to finance additional vaccine as 4m doses arrive next week

By Abdulrahman Abdullahi

The special assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on digital and new media, Tolu Ogunlesi, said on Thursday that a supplementary budget was being prepared to finance additional vaccine purchases.

About 4 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine will land in Nigeria next week in the first tranche of COVAX facility consignment to the country.

The 4 million doses come from the 16 million doses allocated to Nigeria by the global facility, leaving the country with a balance of 12 million doses.

“Covid Vaccines #Nigeria: – First Batch of 4 million (AstraZeneca) arriving by next week (out of 16m allocated to Nigeria by COVAX Facility),” Ogunlesi tweeted on via his verified handle @toluogunlesi.

“Supplementary Budget being prepared, to finance additional Vaccine purchases.

“Lagos is the pandemic epicentre in Nigeria. So I expect that it will naturally get the largest share of the vaccines, followed by FCT,” he tweeted.