Vaccine Alliance
UNICEF to supply AU states 220 million coronavirus vaccines
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has signed an agreement with Janssen Pharmaceutica NV to supply up to 220 million doses of the J&J single-dose vaccine to all 55 member-states of the African Union (AU) by the end of 2022. Some 35 million doses are to be delivered by the end of this year, UNICEF stated in a statement issued on Thursday in New York. The agreement, between UNICEF and Janssen Pharmaceutica NV, will help implement the Advance Purchase Commitment (APC) signed between the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT) and Janssen last March. That agreement secured an option to order another 180 million doses, bringing the maximum access up to a total of 400 million doses by the end of 2022. The AU established AVAT in November 2020 to deliver COVID-19 vaccines to the African continen...
ECOWAS suggests compensation for coronavirus vaccine adverse reactions
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Vaccine Taskforce has recommended compensation for citizens who suffer side effects or injury from the COVID-19 vaccination. Professor Stanley Okolo, the Director-General of the West African Health Organisation (WAHO), disclosed this at the 5th Regional Steering Committee meeting of the Regional Disease Surveillance Systems Enhancement (REDISSE) project on Saturday in Abuja. Okolo said that the recommendation was one of the resolutions adopted by the taskforce and presented to the ECOWAS Ministerial Coordinating Committee to encourage citizens to receive the vaccine. He explained during the REDISSE virtual meeting that the issue of indemnity was being taken up by the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access, the global initiative aimed at equit...
Minister: When Nigeria receives coronavirus vaccines doesn’t lie in our hands
Since the beginning of January 2021, Nigeria has been expecting the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines, but nothing has happened to date. The World Health Organisation, WHO and GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, CEPI, came up with the COVAX initiative to ensure that low and middle-income countries have access to vaccines. But COVAX has not given a precise date for when it will begin distributing the vaccines. Nigeria has put all its hopes on the COVAX Facility. The federal government is also expecting some vaccines from the Africa Union arrangement, expected to deploy from March. This development has attracted criticisms about the government’s readiness and commitment towards ensuring the timely vaccination of Nigerians against the dreaded pande...
Minister: When Nigeria receives coronavirus vaccines doesn’t lie in our hands
Since the beginning of January 2021, Nigeria has been expecting the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines, but nothing has happened to date. The World Health Organisation, WHO and GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, CEPI, came up with the COVAX initiative to ensure that low and middle-income countries have access to vaccines. But COVAX has not given a precise date for when it will begin distributing the vaccines. Nigeria has put all its hopes on the COVAX Facility. The federal government is also expecting some vaccines from the Africa Union arrangement, expected to deploy from March. This development has attracted criticisms about the government’s readiness and commitment towards ensuring the timely vaccination of Nigerians against the dreaded pande...
Nigerian doctor named one of TIME’s Most Influential People in the world
TIME named Nigerian physician Tunji Funsho to the 2020 TIME100, its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. The full list and related tributes are available now at time.com/time100, and Mr Funsho’s TIME100 profile is available here. The list, now in its seventeenth year, recognizes the activism, innovation and achievement of the world’s most influential individuals. Mr Funsho, a cardiologist based in Lagos, Nigeria, is the first Rotary member to receive this honour for the organisation’s work to eradicate polio, having played an essential role in ensuring Africa’s certification as wild polio-free in August of 2020. “I’m honored to be recognized by TIME for my part in ensuring that no child in Africa will ever again be paralyzed by wild polio, a disease that once disabl...
NBS solicits Nigerians’ support on survey on children, women
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has appealed to the general public to support its survey on the situation of women and children it is conducting, is brought to “ a successful end”. Mr Sunday Ichedi, the Head, Public Affairs and International Relations Unit, NBS made the appeal on Wednesday in a statement. Ichedi said that Nigeria had formally started the process of conducting the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS6)/National Immunisation Coverage Survey (NICS) with a virtual inaugural meeting of the National Steering Committee. The global MICS programme was developed by United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in the 1990s as an international household survey programme. The programme was developed to support countries in the collection of internationally comparable data on a wi...
