Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa with more than 200 million people, has seen 131,918 cases, 106,275 recoveries and 1,607 deaths as of February 2, 2021. The government has been in vaccine talks and will obtain 16 million doses of AstraZeneca Covid-19 by the end of February 2021, officials said.
According to Premium Times’s Nike Adebowale, this will replace the initial 100,000 doses of vaccines approved by Pfizer and BioNTech that were planned in the region. In the meantime, the government has declared the compulsory public wearing of face masks and advises people to routinely sanitise and wash hands and practise social distancing to avoid potential lockdowns.
“Nigerians must immediately come to grips with the stark reality that the Covid-19 pandemic is real, not over, and that the second wave of the infection presently ravaging the world, poses a greater danger than the first wave” the Presidential Task Force warns.
This is because it also advised people not to travel to Kogi State, where Governor Yahaya Bello has reportedly called the virus a “common cold” and where there is no enforcement of safety regulations. In order to reach the goal of vaccinating 40 per cent of the population by the end of 2021, the government has expanded its search for vaccines to India and Russia.
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Data source: All Africa news