Former vice president Atiku Abubakar was seen in viral social media photos receiving what is believed to be a vaccine against the dreaded coronavirus in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, making him the first known Nigerian to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
The photos showed the former vice president being injected by health officials in the Western Asian country, while wearing his face mask.
Atiku is believed to have received the same China-developed COVID-19 vaccine that was administered on the Prime Minister of the UAE, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, on November 3, 2020.
As of Tuesday, about 8% of UAE residents are said to have been vaccinated against the coronavirus.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian Government said on Tuesday that the country was expecting about 100,000 doses of the Pfizer-developed COVID-19 vaccines by the end of January.
“In the first phase through the COVAX facility, we expect to receive approximately 100,000 doses of the Pfizer and bioNtech vaccine by the end of January,” said the Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Faisal Shuaib, during the daily briefing of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 on Tuesday.
Shuaib had also said only about 40% of Nigerians will receive the vaccine in the current year.
