Kaduna State vaccinates 5m persons against COVID-19

Kaduna State government said on Friday that it vaccinated more than five million persons against COVID-19, representing 103 per cent fully vaccinated target coverage of 4.9 million persons.

Mr Ibrahim Adamu, Deputy State Immunisation Officer, State Primary Healthcare Board made this known in Kaduna on the side-line of a novelty football match to sensitize youths on sexual and reproductive health.

Adamu told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that about 3.2 million of the vaccinated persons are female.

He said Kaduna State ranked 4th in the national ranking of states with a fully vaccinated population.

He said efforts were ongoing to mobilise those who had not collected their second doses of the vaccine to do so to get fully vaccinated.

“We are working with our social mobilisation working group in the state to ensure that every citizen that is supposed to be vaccinated is fully vaccinated.

“As of last week, we had a shortage of vaccines in some local government areas, but right now we have received almost 5,000 doses of Johnson and Johnson’s vaccines being distributed to all the areas,’’ he said.

NAN reports that the novelty match was organised by the United Nations Population Fund and the Kaduna State Primary Healthcare Board in collaboration with the Kaduna State AIDS Control Agency and an NGO, the Youth Ambassadors.

Dr Audu Alayande, Assistant Representative, Reproductive Health, UNFPA Kaduna, said that the event was organised to sensitise youths on sexual and reproductive health, HIV, family planning, and COVID-19.

“It is also to equip the youth with critical information and knowledge on how to protect themselves against HIV/AIDS, COVID-19, unwanted pregnancies, and unplanned marriages,’’ he said.