The Oyo State Government says it will roll out the second phase of the Oxford AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccination campaign in the last week of May.
Dr Muideen Olatunji, the Executive Secretary of the State Primary Healthcare Board, disclosed this to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ibadan on Tuesday.
Already, he said, more than 65,000 people have been vaccinated with the first dose of the vaccine.
NAN reports that phase one of the vaccination campaign, which began in Ibadan on March 24, 2021, took about four weeks.
In clinical trials, the two doses of the vaccine were originally scheduled for between four and 12 weeks apart across various studies.
The state government had received 127,740 doses of the 3.92 million doses of the vaccine.
The procurement was facilitated through support from the COVAX facility by the Federal Government.
According to Olatunji, ending the first phase and starting phase two is in line with the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) directive.
“The NPHCDA said it stopped vaccination after administering half of the doses supplied in order to give opportunity for those who were already vaccinated with a first dose to receive the second jab, which is the booster dose.
“For maximal effectiveness, two doses of the COVID-19 vaccines are required,’’ he said.
Olatunji urged residents of the state to keep observing COVID-19 safety protocols, as the Federal Government continues to work assiduously to procure more COVID-19 vaccines.
“While COVID-19 vaccine is a critical tool in stopping the global pandemic, it is also an additional tool to other public health measures, which should not be neglected.’’
As at the time of this report, the NPHCDA in its COVID-19 vaccination report for May 17, stated that the agency had vaccinated 68,748 people.
According to the report, the number of persons who had received the first jab of the vaccine represented 87 per cent of the eligible population targeted for the first dose. (NAN)
