Minister of Health Osagie Ehanire has announced that the country was expecting over 29 million of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines.

Mr Ehanire said that the vaccine was purchased by the Government of Nigeria through the African Union’s African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team (AVATT) facility.

He disclosed that over four million of Moderna vaccine, almost 700 thousand of AstraZeneca vaccine, as well as doses of Pfizer and Sinopharm vaccines were being sourced through the COVAX facility from bilateral donations from the governments of the U.S. and the UK.

In preparation for the third wave of the pandemic, Mr Ehanire,  said the ministry had taken steps to urgently scale-up and enhance local oxygen capacity even before oxygen consumption increased.

He also said Nigeria had invested directly and strategically to ensure oxygen availability to avert unforeseen incidence of oxygen insufficiency for COVID-19 patients in the country.

The minister gave these updates at the ministerial briefing on July 27 in Abuja.

At that event, Director General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Chikwe Ihekweazu announced that Nigeria has so far recorded 10 new cases of the Delta COVID-19 variant.

The Delta variant is recognised by the World Health Organisation as a variant of concern, given its increased transmissibility. The variant has so far been detected in over 90 countries.

Mr Ihekweazu, who was represented by Elsie Ilori, Director of Disease Surveillance Department.

He said that while progress had been made in response to the ongoing pandemic with the fact-paced development of diagnostic, therapeutic, and vaccines globally, variants of concern with increased transmissibility pose a threat.

“With sequencing efforts, we have detected 10 cases which are confirmed to be the Delta variant.

”We are working hard to ensure genomic surveillance of travellers’ samples and to scale up our genomic sequencing capacity,” he said.

Meanwhile, Nigeria on Thursday recorded 558 new COVID-19 infections in 15 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

The NCDC figures on Friday morning also showed that two new deaths from COVID-19-related complications were reported.

The centre said that Lagos state led the daily infection chart with 376.

The NCDC said that Lagos is followed by Oyo with 33, Akwa Ibom-26, the FCT-22, Imo-15, Bayelsa and Ekiti reported 13 each.

The centre also said that Kano reported 12 cases while Ogun recorded 11, Plateau-11, Delta-nine, Jigawa-six, Rivers-four, Zamfara-four, Edo-two, and Ebonyi-one.

”Today’s report includes zero cases from Kaduna, Nasarawa, Ondo, and Osun.

”The NCDC regrettably recorded two COVID-19-related deaths on Thursday keeping the death toll at 2, 141,” the centre said.

The agency said that 44 people have recovered and were discharged from various isolation centres in the country on Thursday.

It added that till date, 164,930 recoveries have been recorded nationwide in 36 states and the FCT.

The NCDC said that a multi-sectoral national emergency operations centre, activated at Level II, continues to coordinate the national response activities.