Nigeria asks AU for 10m Covid vaccine doses

Nigeria’s minister of health has said that the country has requested 10 million Covid-19 vaccine doses from the African Union (AU) which has secured millions of doses on behalf of African countries.

It’s not clear which of the Covid-19 vaccines Nigeria will get, but the authorities suggested that the country was expecting its first 100,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine by the end of January.

Health Minister Osagie Ehanire told a media briefing in the capital Abuja that the 10 million vaccine doses are expected to be delivered in March.

The AU secured a provisional 270 million Covid-19 vaccine doses from manufacturers around the world to distribute across the continent.

Mr Ehanire also said the Nigerian government had released about $26m (£19m) to support domestic vaccine production and it was already in talks with manufacturers.

Nigeria has recorded more than 110,000 cases and daily infections are increasing.

Schools in most states of the country reopened on Monday but the government is warning that they could be closed again because of rising numbers of Covid-19 cases.

The authorities say they hope to vaccinate 40% of the population of about 200 million by the end of this year.