The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, says Nigeria is making efforts and hopeful to get the coronavirus vaccines to the country by the end of February.

Mr. Onyeama disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.

He said Nigeria was expecting vaccines from the People’s Republic of China, a strategic partner of Nigeria and from other countries.

“What we are engaging with China is in the area of vaccines for COVID-19, so we are also looking to import, to acquire significant vaccines from China and other partners too.

“They have cooperated with us with regards to personal protective equipment and other things in our COVID response.

“So we are now at the stage of the vaccine and we are hoping that we can get some support from them in that area,” said Mr. Onyeama.

The minister said the nation was still exploring other means of acquiring COVID-19 vaccines, one of which he said, was via the bilateral way.

He also mentioned that Nigeria is also on the framework of the African Union to collectively negotiate for the vaccines as a continent.

“The African Union has made some headway, more than 400 million (doses) is what has been agreed to. So we were hoping that at the end of February we would have started receiving the vaccines.

“But I think almost certainly by the middle of February we should have started receiving,” Mr. Onyeama said.

The federal government opened discussions with China to have access to its COVID-19 vaccines when the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited in January.

Nigerians have, however, been expectant of vaccines, especially as the cases of COVID-19 in the country continues to surge.

(NAN)