BY BANYO TEMITAYO
ONE of Africa’s largest conglomerates, BUA, has paid for one million doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines for Nigeria.
The firm paid through the AFREXIM Vaccine programme in partnership with CACOVID.
This was disclosed in a statement titled, “BUA purchases 1million doses of AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines for Nigeria to be delivered next week”, issued on Monday.
The vaccines, the company said, would be delivered free to Nigerians.
“These doses of the vaccine which should be delivered by next week, will be the first delivery of Vaccines to Nigeria since the COVID-19 vaccines became available,” the statement said.
According to the statement, Founder of BUA, Abdul Samad Rabiu, thanked the President of Afrexim Bank, Benedict Oramah, for making the purchase possible.
He also thanked the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, for coordinating the process through the CACOVID Private Sector partnership.
He said, “BUA decided to secure these 1million vaccines by paying the full amount for the vaccines today because these vaccines became available only last week through AFREXIM.
“We expect the vaccines to be delivered within the next 14 days and hope priority will be given to our frontline workers who have committed their lives to managing the pandemic.”
“In addition to this, BUA is committing to purchase 5 million doses for Nigeria as soon as they become available through this same arrangement.”
