Nigeria Receives 2.6 Million COVID-19 Vaccines From Canada

A total of 2,649,600 doses of Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines have been donated to Nigeria by the Canadian government.

The National Primary Health Care Development Agency made this known in a post on its official Facebook page on Friday.

The official handover of the donation to Nigeria was made by the Canadian High Commissioner to Nigeria, Ambassador Jamie Christoff.

In his speech, the NPHCDA Executive Director, Dr. Faisal Shuaib, said the donation was critical to helping Nigeria ramp up the vaccination rollout process.

Dr. Shuaib said “Johnson & Johnson offers a single-dose opportunity for full vaccination, which means if you take one dose of the vaccine, you are regarded as a fully vaccinated person. However, we strongly recommend a booster dose after two months of taking the initial dose to strengthen your level of immunity against COVID-19. A second dose of J&J vaccine serves as the booster dose.

“May I use this opportunity to thank everyone for your support on the launch of our SCALES 3.0 vaccine deployment strategy. As we all know, we are in a full campaign mode in which COVID-19 vaccines are not only readily made available in the health facilities and other designated places, but also brought by our vaccination teams to your doorsteps! We are leveraging on our polio eradication experience to fight COVID-19, and we are pretty sure that with the kind of support we have received from the Canadian government today, and the continued cooperation of our partners and stakeholders, we will, sooner than expected, be able to put COVID-19 behind us in Nigeria.''