Dr Ejike Oji, Chairman Technical Management Committee, Association for the Advancement of Family Planning (AAFP), says arrival of almost four million doses of COVID-19 vaccine in Nigeria will guarantee national immunity.
Oji said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Friday, in Abuja.
He said the reception would engender a reduction in the spread of the virus when about 75 percent of the population is immunised.
“According to National Primary Health Care Agency (NPHCA), over two million persons have registered for the vaccine; therefore people are willing to get immunity against the virus.
“If the health workers who are front liners in the fight against COVID-19 get immunised, certainly infections and deaths will reduce”.
Oji who lauded the Federal Ministry of Health for making it possible for Nigeria to receive the vaccine, called on Nigerians to take the vaccine.
The medical practitioner expressed optimism that the end to the spread of the virus had begun with the reception of the vaccine.
He urged Nigerians to dismiss rumours and unsubstantiated conspiracy theories surrounding the vaccine, saying that only a synergy of all would contain the virus.
3,924 doses of COVID-19 vaccine arrived in Abuja on Monday, the third and largest delivery so far to an African country by the global COVAX initiative.
The COVAX programme shipped close to four million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, from Mumbai to Nigeria.
