FG Begins Talks With China On COVID-19 Vaccine

The Muhammadu Buhari-led administration has commenced talks with China to have access to COVID-19 vaccines for Nigeria.

Naija News reports that this was made known to newsmen by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffery Onyeama, on Tuesday after a bilateral meeting with the Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi.

Onyeama stated that China had assisted Nigeria immensely when the virus first broke out in Nigeria.

According to the Minister, China’s donation of protective equipment greatly helped the nation in the fight against COVID-19.

He said: “We’ve received a lot of support from China in the area of personal protective equipment that they were very quick to provide us with and of course, with the vaccine discoveries now,

“China is also one of those countries that have been able to discover vaccines for COVID-19. So, we’re also engaging with China to also help with regards to access to vaccines for our people,” he said.

“In the area of fostering relations, both countries are now considering having a direct flight from Nigeria to China.

“We want to establish direct air link with China. We hope that very soon, a Nigerian carrier would be carrying out scheduled flights to China in the not too distant future.”

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has reported 1354 new cases of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in Nigeria.

Naija News reports that the new cases were reported in a post on the disease control agency’s Twitter handle on Tuesday night, January 05, 2021.

The newly reported cases bring the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Nigeria to 92,705 which includes 76,396 discharged cases and 1,319 deaths.