Nigeria is prioritising the AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) said on Tuesday.

Head of the NPHCDA, Dr. Faisal Shuaib said the Sinopharm vaccine had been approved by the national medicines regulator “for emergency use”, but rolling it out was not a priority.

“We don’t want a situation where we may have 10, 20 vaccines that have been globally recognised or listed for emergency use, and then you want to take all 20 vaccines to Nigeria, it doesn’t make any sense,” he told reporters at a regular COVID briefing.

“We’re prioritising those ones that we’re already familiar with,” he said, adding that whether vaccines other than the four he had named were used in Nigeria at a later stage would depend on availability and on “how this pandemic shapes up”.

So far, 2.9 million people in Nigeria have received one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, while 1, 430,379 million people have received two doses. 

The NPHCDA boss disclosed that the the UK government had generously donated an additional 592,880 doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID-19 vaccine, which was received on Aug. 26, 2021, through the COVAX Facility.

“The total quantity of vaccines donated by the UK Government stands at 1,292,640 doses. The additional doses would be included in the second dose vaccination exercise currently ongoing for clients, who have already taken the first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the first phase.

“We would continue to work closely with all states to optimise logistics for full take off of phase 2 vaccination exercise in order to ensure maximum utilisation of available vaccines in Nigeria,” he said.