A medical doctor, Ngong Cyprian, has become the first person to receive the COVID-19 vaccine in Nigeria.
Dr Cyprian has been a frontline health worker since March 2020 – days after the first case of the disease was reported in the country.
He took the jab on Friday in Abuja at the flag-off of the COVID-19 vaccination exercise in Nigeria, an event organised by the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA).
“You can see, I just took the vaccine now and I feel good. I have dreamt of taking the vaccine and I have taken the vaccine today. We’ve been at the forefront of the COVID-19 fight here in National Hospital at the Isolation Centre under the able leadership of the National Hospital,” said the medical doctor.
He added, “They’ve provided everything we need for this fight. We’ve lost some, we’ve got some and we are happy we are getting the vaccines now in Nigeria.
“I think that is about the best news we’ve heard since. I only wished my dad had had this vaccine, maybe months ago or so. We lost him but we thank God, and the fight is still on and we will win.”
The vaccine was administered to Dr Cyprian by the Executive Director of the NPHCDA, Dr Faisal Shuaib, at the National Hospital in the nation’s capital.
Shortly after he took the vaccine, Dr Cyprian was presented with an electronic card that has a QR code.
According to Dr Shuaib, the code contains the information of recipients of vaccines and is needed to verify details of such persons, especially for the purpose of travelling out of the country.
“It shows exactly what vaccines he (Cyprian) has taken; when he took the first and the second doses, and it will also show his photograph.
“This is also an electronic card as it were because of the QR code. This card also contains the exact batch number of the vaccines that he has taken,” he told the gathering at the event.
The NPHCDA boss noted that more health workers were being trained to make them perfect in what they do not just in Abuja, but across the country.
Another medical practitioner, Dr Sahil Yunusa, and two other health workers joined Dr Cyprian as the first set of people to take the vaccines in Nigeria.
Dr Yunusa works at the isolation centre in Gwagwalada in Abuja, where the lives of 10,549 COVID-19 patients are said to have been saved.
