ABUJA: Nearly four million coronavirus jabs arrived in Nigeria on Tuesday, making Africa’s most populous nation the latest country to receive vaccines from Covax, a global scheme to provide free inoculations.

A flight carrying 3.94 million AstraZeneca doses arrived shortly before noon at Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in the capital Abuja. Richer countries have surged ahead with vaccinations but many poorer countries are still awaiting deliveries, prompting the World Health Organization (WHO) to warn that the crisis cannot end unless everyone can inoculate their populations.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was among those hailing the arrival, writing on Twitter: “We must ACTogether to supply vaccines to all countries in the first 100 days of 2021.”

The batch of AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccines, made by the Serum Institute of India, are the first of 16 million jabs that Covax plans to deliver over the coming months to the country of 200 million people.—AFP