From the beginning of December, Nigerian civil officials will be required to produce proof of vaccination against COVID-19 or a negative test for the disease in order to get entry to their offices, according to a presidential committee.
Unvaccinated government employees would be required to submit a negative test result within 72 hours before being permitted entry to their offices across the country and to the country’s embassies overseas, according to the presidential committee.
In a statement, Boss Mustapha, chairman of the presidential steering group on COVID-19, said, “An appropriate service-wide advisory/circular would be published to lead the process.”
Nigeria has given out five million vaccine doses to its 200 million people and is in the process of distributing millions of more doses of Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines obtained through the COVAX vaccine initiative for poor countries.
It also has 1.12 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which is obtained through an African Union program and is set to receive 7.7 million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine through COVAX.
Nigeria has so far registered 208,153 confirmed infections and 2,756 deaths from COVID-19, despite the fact that the virus has not been widely tested.
Nigeria barred travelers from several countries where COVID-19 was spreading fast in May.
Following an assessment of developments in those countries, the presidential committee agreed to remove South Africa, Turkey, and Brazil from its restricted travel list.
