ABUJA, Nov 15 (Reuters) – Nigeria will start a mass COVID-19 vaccination campaign later this week, aiming to inoculate half of its targeted population by the end of January, government officials said.

Africa’s most-populous country has a goal to vaccinate 111 million people to reach herd immunity.

Under the initiative to start on Friday, 55 million doses or more than a million a day will be administered. The country has to date vaccinated only 2.9% of those eligible to get vaccines.

The plan will see vaccine sites set up at private health facilities, universities, colleges, stadiums, motor parks and shopping malls among other venues.

Read more: Nigeria approves Sinopharm COVID vaccine, expects 7.7 mln doses

Boss Mustapha, head of the presidential steering committee on COVID-19, said the government “has enough vaccines in the pipeline to vaccinate about 50% of the target population by the end of January 2022.”

He also said the government was making efforts to secure booster shots “so as to build a healthy level of antibodies.” He did not provide details.

Faisal Shuaib, executive director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, said Nigeria received about 5 million AstraZeneca shots last month from the COVAX global-sharing facility, both purchases and donations. Nigeria also had commitments for 11.99 million and 12.2 million doses of Pfizer Inc/BioNTech and Moderna Inc COVID-19 vaccines, respectively, he said.

The government has purchased nearly 40 million Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses, which would be coming in batches, said Shuaib.

(Reporting by Felix Onuah; Writing by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by Peter Cooney)