Nigeria surpasses 30% COVID-19 Vaccination Milestone

Mon, Jan 30, 2023

4 MIN READ

Health

NIGERIA has maintained a sustained COVID-19 Vaccination rollout in recent months to surpass the milestone of fully vaccinating 30 percent of its total population.

The increase from less than 3 per cent coverage with a primary series in January 2022 to over 30 per cent in January 2023 is a result of dedicated efforts by the government and stakeholders in rolling out relevant strategies to sustain COVID-19 vaccination amidst competing health priorities.

Key drivers behind the success of this year’s drive include leadership and improved coordination at the local, state and national level as well as innovation such as increase of mobile vaccination sites.

With more teams being supported to take the vaccines to communities, rather than wait for visits to facilities, missed opportunities are being reduced.

The country also adopted a strategy to track the performance of the vaccination teams in the various states through the daily call-in data. Performance of states are being ranked, and this is disseminated daily on social media and provides healthy competition across the states.

Nigeria has also set up COVID-19 Crisis Communication Center, CRICC, at the national and state levels ensured targeted demand generation activities were adopted and rolled out across the country

Nigeria has maintained COVID-19 vaccine rollout through campaigns and initiatives with the support of stakeholders including Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. COVAX, which Gavi co-leads with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, CEPI, WHO and UNICEF has supplied over 91 million COVID-19 vaccines to Nigeria (about 65% of all vaccines received) and over 669 Million to the African continent.

The country has also developed an integrated micro-plan featuring routine immunization alongside COVID-19 vaccinations with a bottom-up approach taking into account individual state’s plans.

The country has also integrated a service delivery approach with teams empowered to provide multiple arrays of services – COVID-19 vaccination, routine immunization ensuring that other key health services were not neglected.

Dr. Richard Mihigo, Director of COVID-19 Vaccine Delivery, Coordination and Integration at Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which leads on procurement and delivery at scale for COVAX, comments on Nigeria’s progress:

“Nigeria has become a case study on how to roll out COVID-19 vaccines at scale and speed and at the same time, catch up on routine immunization programmes. The country’s surveillance systems are efficient and precise, enabling monitoring of trends as well as promptly responding to counter vaccine misinformation increasing acceptability of the vaccines.

To ensure continued momentum, Gavi in December approved a new round of COVID-19 vaccine delivery support (CDS) availing $27.7m, which will go to further accelerate the rollout of vaccines.

Gavi is proud to support Nigeria’s efforts and congratulates it on the progress it has made to date on protecting its population.”

Facts and Figures:

COVAX has since 1.8 billion doses shipped, ensuring all countries have COVID19 vaccines to protect their populations.
The 92 lower-income countries supported by the Gavi COVAX Advanced Market Commitment (AMC) have reached now an average of 52% coverage with a primary series vaccination (two doses) of COVID-19 vaccines – meaning nearly 2 billion people have been protected – vital progress towards closing the vaccine equity gap.
In January 2022, coverage across the 92 AMC-supported countries stood at 31% on average, with 34 countries below 10%. Today only 7 countries – all representing fragile and conflict settings with complex systemic challenges – remain below 10%.
Through the COVID-19 Vaccine Delivery Partnership, launched by Gavi, WHO and UNICEF, COVAX has been providing tailored support to the countries below 10% coverage, helping them overcome delivery bottlenecks.
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, has been supporting immunization in Africa since 2000. Read about the impact of our work in Africa here and our work in Nigeria over two decades, here.
For expert insights and original content and stories from around the world, visit Gavi’s online digital platform Vaccines Work.

A.I