By Haruna Gimba
President Muhammadu Buhari, Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo and other top government officials will on Saturday receive shots of the COVID-19 vaccine publicly, to dissipate vaccine hesitancy amongst Nigerians.
To remove the scepticism about the vaccines recently brought into the country for the treatment of the disease, President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo will on Saturday receive the COVID-19 vaccine publicly.
The Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr Faisal Shuaib, disclosed this at the second edition of State House weekly briefing at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
He said the public vaccination of the president and vice president was to remove the skepticism about the vaccines recently brought into the country for the treatment of the coronavirus.
The second edition pf the briefing focused on how Nigeria has handled the response to the COVID-19 pandemic generally, in the last one year, and especially the National Vaccination Response.
Dr Shuaib said President Buhari and Prof Osinbajo will receive the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine following the vaccination of some frontline health workers on Friday.
Similarly, the 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.
Meanwhile, the Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr Chikwe Iheakwazu, has warned that as much as vaccines provide some very important light, “the response of testing, surveillance, protecting health workers, investing in national health security and driving risk communications, has to continue.”
Also, the Director General of National Agency for Food Drugs and Administration Control (NAFDAC), Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, warned that fake COVID-19 vaccines are already in the global market.
“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,” Adeyeye said.
The Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire, warned that as a country, Nigeria has been lucky so far, adding 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,” Ehanire said.
