The National Primary Health Care Development Agency has announced that the expected COVAX Astrazeneca/Oxford vaccines have arrived in Nigeria.

The agency disclosed this in a social media statement on Tuesday after the first batch landed at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja.

The Federal Government through different agencies had earlier hinted that 3.94 million doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India were expected to arrive today, March 2, 2021.

Present at the airport to receive the vaccines are; the Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Covid-19, Boss Mustapha, the DG of the NPHCDA, Dr Faisal Shuaib, the Minister for Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire and the DG of the Nigeria Centre for Diseases Control, NCDC, Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu.

What you should know

• Nigeria has received nearly four million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, shipped via the COVAX Facility, a partnership between CEPI, Gavi, UNICEF and WHO.
• The National Primary Health Care Development Agency had earlier said it would commence the vaccination of Nigerians in priority groups, starting with frontline healthcare workers.
• The NPHCDA disclosed that it has built the capacity to train over 12,000 health workers to manage and administer the Covid-19 vaccines that will arrive in Nigeria soon.
• On Monday, the NPHCDA released guidelines on registering for Covid-19 vaccination in Nigeria.
• Ghana received its first shipment of Covid-19 vaccines from the Covax initiative on February 24, 2020.