Nigeria may incure a sum in the region of $1.4bn (N540.4bn, at the official exchange rate of $1: N386) to procure and distribute 218,400,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines, according to reports.
According to the WHO, Africa will need at least $9bn (N3.4tn) to procure and distribute 1.4 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines.
Meanwhile, the Immunisation and Vaccines Development Programme Coordinator, WHO, Dr Richard Mihigo, has said it will partner institutions such as the African Union, World Bank and others to roll out the COVID-19 vaccination in Africa.
Mihigo who fielded questions from the newsmen at the WHO Africa online press briefing last week, Mihigo said, “We will definitely need to vaccinate between 60 to 70 per cent of the African population.
“So, if you consider that we have about 1.2 to 1.3 billion people on the African continent and you take 60 per cent of that with the assumption that you will need maybe two doses per population, we are talking about close to 1.3 to 1.4 billion vaccine doses that will be needed to immunise 60 per cent of the people in Africa to reach herd immunity.”
“So if we compute that number with the preliminary information that we are getting with these vaccine manufacturers because it is not only the cost of the vaccines. There are also additional costs that are needed to deliver those vaccines.
“We know very well that the preliminary rough estimation that is being done, we may need up to $9bn. So, this is a lot of money, a lot of funding that will be needed. First of all, we are not sure that we are going to get enough supply to immunise everybody (in Africa) by the end of 2021.”
Nigeria, which has an estimated population of 203 million people, is Africa’s most populous country and constitutes 15.6 per cent of the entire population of the continent.
Based on the WHO’s estimates on how much it would cost Africa per head, Nigeria may require about $1.4bn to procure and distribute 218,400,000 doses of COVID-19 for double doses for 60 per cent of its population.
