Nigeria will begin administering the second batch of COVID-19 vaccines donated by the United States of America on August 10, according to the Presidential Steering Committee on COVID-19 (PSC).

Mr Willie Bassey, the committee’s Director of Publicity, said this in a statement in Abuja on Saturday.

This is to ramp up efforts to combat the third wave of infections, according to Bassey.

“The PSC has received over four million doses of Moderna vaccine donated by the U.S. Government to Nigeria.

“In view of the above, the inoculation is scheduled from Tuesday, Aug. 10, at the Federal Medical Centre, Jabi, off Airport road, Abuja,” he said.

The donation was part of President Joe Biden’s pledge to offer the world 500 million vaccines by the end of 2022, according to NAN.

The shipment was the second batch of vaccines to arrive in Nigeria, after the delivery of four million doses in March as part of the COVAX vaccine sharing programme.

COVAX was created to ensure that vaccines are distributed fairly, especially to low-income countries, and has already given over 80 million doses to 129 countries.

The four million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine have been used up in Nigeria.

The Moderna vaccine, which was received on August 1, is an mRNA vaccine produced and developed by Moderna, NIAID. The vaccination will be given in two doses, 28 days apart, through intramuscular injection.

Based on results from large-scale clinical trials, the World Health Organization (WHO) designated the Moderna vaccine for emergency use and the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) approved it as safe and effective.

The Federal Government revealed a plan to vaccinate 109 million people against the COVID-19 virus during a two-year period.

Only people aged 18 and over would be vaccinated, according to the statement.

To achieve this, “the vaccine roll-out will be in four phases, starting with health workers, frontline workers, COVID-19 rapid response team, laboratory network, policemen, petrol station workers and strategic leaders.

“Phase 2 will cover older adults aged 50 years and above and those with co-morbidities aged 18-49.

“Phase 3 will cover those in states/local governments with high disease burden and those who missed phases 1 and 2 while phase 4 will cover other eligible population as vaccines become available,” it stated.