Nigeria is yet to meet the 70 per cent COVID-19 target two years after it commenced the COVID-19 vaccination.
Experts say for a country to achieve herd immunity, about 70 to 90 per cent of the population needs to be immune to a disease, either by contracting the disease and recovering or by getting a protective vaccine. This reaches what the World Health Organisation calls the herd immunity threshold.
Nigeria is the third country in West Africa to receive its first batch of AstraZeneca vaccines from the COVAX facility on March 2, 2021, and began vaccinating frontline health care workers, the highest-priority recipients, in Abuja on March 5, followed by strategic leaders on March 8.
Checks by our correspondent showed that Nigeria is yet to fully vaccinate 70 per cent of the total eligible persons targeted for COVID-19 vaccination, two years after the commencement of its COVID-19 vaccination.
This is despite efforts made by the Federal Government to ensure that the vaccines would cover over 70 per cent of its population before the end of 2022.
The Secretary to the Government of the Federation and Chairman of the Presidential Steering Committee on COVID-19, Boss Mustapha, had said in 2021 that Nigeria would cover over 70 per cent of the country’s population before the end of 2022.
However, data obtained from the official social media platforms of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency showed that only 68,781,471 of the total eligible persons targeted for COVID-19 vaccination, representing 59.3 per cent, had been vaccinated as of March 1, 2023.
Also, only 11,791,111 of the total eligible persons targeted for COVID-19 vaccination have been partially vaccinated, which is 11.0 per cent.
Meanwhile, Seychelles, Rwanda, Liberia, and Mauritius have fully vaccinated 70 per cent of their populations against COVID-19, with Morocco and Cape Verde coming closer to reaching this same milestone.
The Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr Faisal Shuaib, told The PUNCH that the apathy towards COVID-19 vaccination in the country was largely due to rumours, misinformation, and disinformation.
