COVID-19: USAID donates additional $10.6m assistance to Nigeria

Etim Ekpimah

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has announced the notification of an additional $10.6 million in development assistance to continue support for the goals outlined in a 2021 bilateral agreement between the U.S. and Nigerian governments.

It was gathered that most of the new funding will finance boosting COVID-19 vaccination efforts to reach targets of 600,000 people a day.

The agency stated that the funds would also support integrating COVID-19 vaccinations into routine immunization and primary health care systems, state-level data collection and analytics, health worker training, and expansion of vaccination access points at the community level.

“Given the significant progress Nigeria has made, we are pleased to provide more funds to improve COVID-19 vaccine delivery services.

“These new funds will deepen our support for all levels of government to meet their vaccination targets,” USAID Mission Director, Anne Patterson said.

Patterson said the funding increases the total U.S. assistance to the Nigerian people to $179 million under the five-year $2.1 billion Development Objectives Assistance Agreement signed between USAID and the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning as affirmed by the U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken during his visit to Nigeria in November 2021.