The Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care
Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr Faisal Shuaib, announced this on Thursday at a
presidential briefing held at the State House in Abuja, the nation’s capital.
He revealed that the government would kick-off the exercise
at the National Hospital in Abuja where the frontline health workers there
would be the first set of people to be vaccinated.
Shuaib also hinted that the President, Muhammadu Buhari, and
the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, would also take their vaccine
shots a day after the health workers were administered the vaccines.
Although he noted that the actual time for the inoculation
of the two leaders would be communicated soon, he disclosed that members of the
Federal Executive Council would be vaccinated on Monday.
They include the Secretary to the Government of the
Federation (SGF), Mr Boss Mustapha, and ministers among others.
According to the NPHCDA boss, an improved percentage of 50
per cent of Nigerians have indicated willingness to be vaccinated while 25 per
cent remain hesitant.
He insisted that the vaccines would not be deployed to any
state that has not fulfilled its preparedness criteria.
Who To Prioritise
On Tuesday, Nigeria received its first shipment of 3,924,000
doses of the vaccines from COVAX, a World Health Organisation (WHO)-backed
initiative set up to procure and ensure equitable distribution of vaccines for
free among countries across the world.
The vaccines arrived at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International
Airport in Abuja at about noon via an Emirates airplane from India.
Ahead of the distribution, the government had said the
vaccines would be administered in the order of priority, with the frontline
health workers on the top of the list.
The Minister of State for Health, Dr Olorunnimbe Mamora, who
was a guest on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Monday, had hinted that
the government would also consider the elderly and the strategic leaders in the
country – such as the President and other key public office holders.
Thursday’s briefing was also attended by the Minister of
Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire; Director-General of the National Agency for Food and
Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Mojisola Adeyeye, as well as the
Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr Chikwe
Ihekweazu.
No Treatment Yet
In his remarks, Ehanire revealed that the government planned
to provide 10-bed Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in every state of the Federation,
as part of strategies to provide critical response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
He, however, gave an assurance that the focus on COVID-19
prevention and treatment would not wipe out the maintenance of normal routine
vaccination.
The minister hinted that the Federal Ministry of Health
intended to develop as a matter of urgency Nigeria’s emergency medical service
to respond to persons with medical distress.
He stressed the need to continue with the public health
measures, adding that there was no specific treatment for COVID-19 but trials
to improve therapeutics.
Dr Ehanire speaks during a presidential briefing at the
State House in Abuja on March 4, 2021.
On her part, Adeyeye announced that the agency would soon
commence a ‘track and trace’ exercise to mitigate and potentially halt the
infiltration of falsified and sub-standard COVID-19 vaccines already detected
in the global supply chain.
She revealed that an indigenous software was being employed
to check the authenticity of received products, saying NAFDAC was collaborating
with the Ministry of Health NCDC to ensure safe monitoring of medicines in the
market.
Ihekweazu, in his briefing, stated that Thursday made it
exactly a year and five days since COVID-19 was identified in the country.
He said Nigeria has since maintained a robust response to
the pandemic and called for the sustenance of critical investment to the health
sector to consolidate on the gains achieved in the last one year.
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