By Egena Sunday Ode
President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo will on Saturday receive the Covid-19 vaccines publicly.
The president and his vice will be among the first to be administered the vaccines in the shores of the country, and this is to discourage vaccine hesitancy which is said to be increasing globally.
Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Faisal Shuaib, disclosed this at the second edition of State House weekly ministerial briefing.
The second edition is focused on Nigeria’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic in the last one year, especially the National Vaccination Response.
Shuaib said the number one and two citizens will receive the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine after some frontline health workers are vaccinated on Friday.
Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 (PTF) and Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha will also receive his first dose of the vaccine on the same day.
This is even as the Director-General, of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control( NCDC), Dr Chikwe Iheakwazu, warned that as much as vaccines provide some very important light, the response of – testing, surveillance, protecting health workers, investing in national health security, driving risk communications, etc, would not be stopped..
Director General of National Agency for Food Drugs and Administration Control (NAFDAC), Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, also warnwd that fake COVID-19 vaccines were already in the global market.
She said: “That’s why NAFDAC is focusing on track-and-trace, to ensure no infiltration of substandard vaccines in supply chain. Traceability is very important; we can trace the vaccines from airport to the patient.”
The Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, said thar as a country, Nigeria had been lucky so far but warnwd that, “we must not stretch our luck. We must continue with our non-pharmaceutical measures.
“We must look at vaccine as a game changer, but make no mistake that it’s a replacement for everything else. It is an additional strategy. Vaccines are an addition to the existing Response, not a Replacement. “
