Nigeria Set to Receive 4 million Doses of Modena Vaccines Tomorrow

By Onyebuchi Ezigbo

Federal government has said that a new batch of four million doses of Modena vaccine will arrive in the country latest by Sunday.

The Executive Director of the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr. Faisal Shuaib who disclosed this during an interview on the NTA network news yesterday night, said that the vaccine would be taken to various storage facilities across the country for immediate deployment for the vaccination exercise.

He said: “In Less than 72 hours from now, Nigeria will be receiving four million doses of Modena vaccines from the Covax facility and we are excited that this will be another opportunity for us to advance the protection of Nigerians against COVID-19 virus.”

He said that the Presidential Steering Committee on COVID19 had made adequate preparations for the storage and distribution of the vaccine by procuring 60 ultra-cold chain storage facilities across the country.

He explained that the Modena vaccine, expected to arrive on Sunday, requires ultra-cold temperatures ranging from 25 to 50 degrees Celsius whose storage equipment has been procured and installed.

According to Shuaib, as soon as the vaccines arrive, vaccination exercises will start by next week.

He also gave assurance that other vaccines like the Oxford Astrazeneca vaccine, Pfizer and Johnson and Johnson vaccines will be arriving in the country in September.

Nigeria had earlier received about four million doses of Astrazeneca from through the Covax brokered deal which were administered by health workers, strategic leadership, persons with comorbidity and the elderly under the first phase of vaccination exercise.

Ahead of the arrival more vaccines doses to Nigeria, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) had approved Modena (Rovi Pharma Madrid, Spain) AstraZeneca AZD1222 (South Korea Bioscience Co Limited (Republic of Korea)) Sputnik V (Gamaleya National Centre of Epidemiology and Microbiology, Russia) for emergency use authorisation.