ABUJA, Nigeria (CU)_The Nigerian government has initiated talks with China on how to procure COVID-19 vaccines for the African nation, Nigeria’s minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama said.
Onyeama announced this during a media briefing held on Tuesday (Jan 5), following a closed-door bilateral meeting held with the Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi.
“China is also one of those countries that have been able to discover vaccines for COVID-19, so we are also engaging with China to also help with regards to access to vaccines for our people,” the Nigerian Foreign Minister said.
He noted that China has been assisting Nigeria since the beginning of the pandemic, and that the protective equipment donated by Beijing has immensely impacted the nation’s fight against COVID-19.
According Onyeama, the relations between Nigeria and China dates as far back as 50 years, and the two countries have many areas of cooperation to celebrate this year.
Sharing details of the deliberations during the meeting with his Chinese counterpart, the Nigerian Foreign Minister said the parties discussed health issues brought about by the pandemic, as well as plans to improve trade relations between the two nations.
Meanwhile, the Presidential Task-force on COVID-19 in Nigeria has disclosed that the country is expected to receive approximately 100,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine by the end of January, from the COVAX facility. Another 42 million doses of vaccines are expected to be delivered in the second phase, through the initiative run by the vaccine alliance, GAVI.
According to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), the African nation has registered nearly 96,000 COVID-19 infections and 1,330 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.
