Covid crisis: Nigeria to establish 36 Oxygen plants, open talks to buy Chinese vaccine
London, Jan. 6, 2021 (AltAfrica)-Nigeria is establishing 36 oxygen plants across the country with one in each of the 36 states of the federation to alleviate the shortage of the product that has become essential in the management of critical covid-19 patient
This comes as CACOVID commences the distribution of 100 oxygen cylinders per day to Critical Care centres, till March-end.
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The Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, Boss Mustapha, announced this during a briefing on Tuesday in Abuja, the nation’s capital.
President Buhari also gave approval for the rehabilitation of five oxygen plants across tertiary health institutions across the country.
“Approval has been given to rehabilitate five oxygen plants across various tertiary health institutions in Abuja,” the PTF Chairman said.
Meanwhile, Nigerian government says it has opened talks with the Peoples Republic of China to have access to COVID-19 vaccines for the country
Our discharges today include 324 community recoveries in Lagos State and 137 community recoveries in FCT managed in line with guidelines.
— NCDC (@NCDCgov) January 5, 2021
A breakdown of cases by state can be found via https://t.co/zQrpNeOfet pic.twitter.com/5iV0JuTwyh
Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Geoffery Onyeama, made the disclosure on Tuesday in Abuja while briefing newsmen shortly after a bilateral meeting with the Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi. Yi is in Nigeria on a working visit.
“We have received a lot of support from China in the area of personal protective equipment that they were very quick to provide us with and of course, with the vaccine discoveries now,
“China is also one of those countries that have been able to discover vaccines for COVID-19, so we are also engaging with China to also help with regards to access to vaccines for our people,” he said.
Aside the Chinese vaccine, Nigeria will receive at least 100,000 doses of the Pfizer and BioNTech approved COVID-19 vaccines by the end of January.
The Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Faisal Shuaib, made this known at the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 briefing on Tuesday.
He said a letter announcing this allocation in the first phase of the delivery of the vaccines is expected from the COVAX facility during the week.
“In the first phase through the COVAX facility, we expect to receive approximately 100,000 doses of the Pfizer and bioNtech vaccine by the end of January,” he said.
Mr Shuaib noted the country is expecting free 42 million doses of vaccines in the second phase through the COVAX facility, an initiative run by the vaccine alliance, GAVI, to ensure equitable access to a COVID vaccine.
He said the second phase will be “a combination of all the available approved vaccines currently in the market.” These vaccines will, however, cover only about 20 per cent of Nigeria’s population, Mr Faisal said.
Nigeria has over 200 million persons as per population.
Amidst the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, many countries are already on the queue to access effective vaccines for its citizens.
The Nigerian government had earlier inaugurated an 18-member national COVID-19 task team to ensure ‘vaccine security’ when it finally gets to the country.
