Nigeria’s shortage of COVID vaccine stalls voyage to hit WHO’s 70% Target

The dream of fully vaccinating up to 70 percent of Africa’s biggest population against the deadly coronavirus might remain just – a dream as new data shows the unavailability of COVID-19 vaccine may have stalled Nigeria’s goal of achieving herd immunity.

Dataphyte findings showed 49.82 million Nigerians have received a complete dose of covid vaccine as at November 1^st 2022. This development means about 44.6 percent of Nigeria’s eligible population have received complete covid vaccines.

Another 12.61 million people have been partially vaccinated. This makes an additional 11percent of the total partially vaccinated.

By this, Nigeria has fallen short of the 70percent target the World Health Organisation (WHO) set by mid-2022. Nigeria also failed to meet the 10% set for the end of September 2021 as the country hit the target after the deadline.

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The absence of adequate local vaccine manufacturing capacity in Africa’s largest economy and its beggared posture of relying heavily on reluctant donors have had analysts conclude that the vaccination execution plan is very unrealistic.

Nigeria achieved the 10percent target six months after the deadline on the 27th of March 2022, a few months before the 70percent set target, where 10.7percent were fully vaccinated.

While the people presenting themselves for vaccination will enhance the country meeting the target, the availability of the vaccine to effectively cover the expected population target is also a key factor‌.

It is expected that at least 70 percent of the 112,012,486 eligible Nigerians are to be fully vaccinated by the end of June 2022 (mid-2022). This will mean 78,408,740 people will be fully vaccinated by June 2022.

However, as of the 29th of June 2022, only 22.94 million people have been fully vaccinated. This accounted for 20.5% of the eligible population to be vaccinated.

But were there enough vaccine doses of covid vaccines to cater to this much of the population?

As of the end of February 2022, Nigeria has received ‌67,973,250 doses of covid vaccines. Further, another 47 million doses are in the pipeline to be delivered before the end of the year. 

However, for 78.41 million Nigerians to be fully vaccinated, the country needs 156,817,480 doses of covid vaccines. This goes by the requirement that one must have taken two doses of the vaccine to be fully vaccinated.

A statement from the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) noted that the country has received to date (February 24, 2022) 67,973,250 doses of COVID-19 vaccines.

It further states that an additional 47 million doses are expected to be delivered. This will give 114,973,250 doses of covid vaccines in the country before the end of 2022.

Thus, going by two doses for full vaccination, the doses will cover only 57,486,625 persons. This means that even if every Nigerian availed themselves of vaccination, only 57.49 million people would be fully vaccinated by the end of 2022 based on the vaccines.

This means Nigeria will achieve just 51 percent of full vaccination by the end of 2022 because of insufficient vaccines. 

While various issues with vaccine misinformation have led to some level of resistance from the people, Nigeria would not have achieved the 70percent if all these misconceptions were cleared.

This is because the volume of vaccines supplied to the country would have catered for 51percent by the end of 2022.

How risky is the shortage?

Without adequate vaccinations, infections will continue to grow and more cost will go out of government and private coffers into managing the disease.

Businesses might be unable to keep operations running normally, although the apparent low rates of infection seen in Nigeria when compared with some countries in Europe give a bit of assurance that the country might never really face a dire situation.

In his last visit to a summit jointly convened by the government of South Korea and the World Health Organisation (WHO), President Muhammadu Buhari said the high quality of current academic and research work and potential in Nigeria, places the country in readiness to become a global hub for sustainable manufacturing and distribution of vaccines and biological pharmaceuticals.

‘‘Nigeria invites partners ready to support efforts towards the entire value chain of vaccine technology development in our continent, to consider working with us in Nigeria,’’ he said.

Buhari noted that the ongoing conversations on the future of vaccines tend to support the decentralisation of capacity to produce essential materials to respond globally to pandemics and expressed Nigeria’s preference for a global warehousing and supply chain strategy to attend to the needs of most countries.