By Asmau Ahmad
The Secretary to the Government of the Federation and Chairman, Presidential Steering Committee on COVID-19, Mr. Boss Mustapha, has revealed that the federal government will not meet the target to vaccinate 50 per cent of its eligible population with the COVID-19 vaccine before the end of the first quarter of 2022.
According to the The Punch Newspaper, the SGF said an eligible 56.6 million persons that make up 50 per cent of eligible persons in Nigeria have not yet been vaccinated.
Mustapha also warned that COVID-19 still poses a danger, and stressed that all COVID-19 measures should still be observed.
According to data from the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, as of March 29, 19,942,020 have received their first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, while 12,139,797 have been fully vaccinated.
NPHCDA also noted that there was low uptake of the vaccine in the South-South and South-East regions of the country, with Bayelsa State having the least number with 58,498 persons partially vaccinated.
This is as Ebonyi, Anambra, Imo and Akwa Ibom still ranked very low when compared to other states in the country.
However, Nasarawa, Jigawa, Kano, the FCT and Ogun were described as the best performing states in terms of vaccination by the agency.
Also, according to the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control, as of March 29, there had been a total of 255,341 cases of the virus, 249,566 persons discharged and 3,142 deaths recorded by the agency.
In the statement which was shared on the official Facebook page of the NPHCDA, Mustapha warned, “It is not over yet. The pandemic is still with us as we remain at the battlefront, mixed with successes and failures.
“We have a target to reach 56.6m (50%) eligible Nigerians by Q1 2022 and we are far from this target.
“With the launch of the Service Delivery, Communication, Accountability, Logistics, Electronic Reporting and Supportive Supervision 2.0 strategy by NPHCDA, COVID-19 vaccination sites are now accessible at both private and public primary, secondary and tertiary health facilities as well as mass vaccination sites such as markets, airports and worship centres.”
“With a strengthened and improved health system, we are confident that Nigeria will exit the pandemic with a strengthened health system that will be able to resist shocks caused by disease outbreaks and other mutating variants of the COVID-19 virus.”
The SCALES 2.0 is a campaign by the NPHCDA to ramp up the uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine by establishing mass vaccination sites in public places like markets, parks, shopping malls, schools, mosques and churches.
