Mr. Boss Mustapha, secretary of the Government of the Federation and chairman of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 has disclosed in Abuja that the first shipment of 100,000 COVID-19 vaccines being expected by Nigeria, would arrive in early February.
According to him, the effort to access and deploy vaccines are progressing and as already announced by COVAX, the initial 100,000 doses Nigeria is expecting will now arrive in the early weeks of February.
“We wish to assure all Nigerians that the vaccines will be safe and effective when eventually it is deployed. We enjoin everyone to join in the campaign to eliminate vaccine hesitancy.
As at January 24, Nigeria had 121,566; total tests so far were 1,270,523, while active cases were 22,834.
Nigeria has also discharged 97,228 patients and death toll stood at 1,504.
In 7 days, ending Jan. 23, Nigeria conducted 58,974 tests, while cases recorded were 11,179, with a positivity of 19.0 per cent.
“Sixty-two deaths were recorded, with case fatality ratio of 0.6 per cent; active cases stood at 23,568 at 19.4 per cent.
“All these numbers represent increases from the previous seven days and we are looking at taking further public health containment measures in local government areas that are considered high burden,” he explained.
On the activities of the PTF in managing COVID-19, the PTF chairman said: “The management of cases is gradually improving with the availability of medical oxygen. Government is also fast tracking the rehabilitation of existing plants and construction of new ones as approved by the President.
“The PTF has advanced in the deployment of resources for the national testing week and continues to review the bottlenecks affecting the turnaround time for testing.
“The PTF is improving on the International Travel Portal to minimise the challenges passengers keep encountering,” he said.
Speaking on the phase three eased lockdown, Mustapha said the PTF “is reviewing the guidelines on the implementation of phase three of the eased lockdown which is due to expire today (on Monday).
“In view of the fact that our numbers are not abating, all extant measures prescribed in these guidelines are (subject to some modifications) extended by a period of one month with effect from Tuesday, Jan. 26,” he said.
