ABUJA, Nigeria – Nigeria has commenced its delayed mpox vaccination program on Monday, November 18th, 2024. The vaccination drive, initially scheduled for October, targets healthcare workers and individuals with weakened immune systems in hospitals across the nation’s capital, Abuja.
The African giant, Nigeria, received its first batch of 10,000 mpox vaccine doses from the United States in August. This followed the World Health Organization’s declaration of mpox as a global health emergency for the second time in two years.
Nigeria, one of the African nations where mpox is endemic, has reported 94 confirmed cases and no deaths since the beginning of 2024, as per a WHO report released last month.
At the Federal Medical Centre in Abuja, healthcare workers, clad in protective gear, administered mpox shots to 30 individuals, signaling the commencement of the vaccination campaign.
Hafsat Abdullazeez from the Institute of Human Virology in Abuja clarified that the vaccination program is not a mass vaccination but a targeted approach aimed at healthcare workers and immunocompromised individuals, particularly those living with HIV.
Hardley Ikwe of the U.S. Centre for Disease Control revealed that the initial phase of the vaccination program, spanning 10 days, will focus on Abuja and seven additional states, including the oil-producing regions of Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, and Rivers, where multiple cases have been identified.
The World Health Organization reported earlier this month that an initial allocation of 899,000 vaccine doses has been earmarked for nine African countries most severely impacted by the mpox surge.
