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Nigerian govt reassures citizens on safety of covid-19 vaccines

September 2, 2021 No Comments

The National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) on Thursday, reassured Nigerians of the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines in the country.

Executive Director, NPHCDA, Dr Faisal Shuaibu, gave the assurance when Mr David Anyaele, Executive Director, Centre for Citizens with Disabilities, a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), visited the agency in Abuja.

Shuaibu urged Nigerians to erase misconceptions about COVID-19 vaccines and ensure they were vaccinated against the virus.

While pledging the agency’s commitment to ensure inclusive healthcare for People with Disabilities (PWDs) in the country, Bassey tasked Nigerians to have confidence in the system and take advantage of the available doses of the vaccines.

According to him, the vaccination helps people to develop immunity that can fight the COVID-19 virus.

Shuaibu reiterated the agency’s commitment to give priority attention to persons living with disabilities in efforts to ensure that all Nigerians have equal access to the COVID-19 vaccine.

According to him, the agency has directed all its vaccination centres to give priority to disabled persons, saying “If they are on the line, we can’t keep them waiting”.

“I encourage every Nigerian to have confidence in the COVID-19 vaccines, it’s critical in tackling the virus.

“We encourage you to have confidence in the system.

“Nigeria is the only African country that the first phase of vaccine to Africa did not expire.

“There is no other African country, the least of them was 90, 000 doses, some 92, 900 doses that expired, some up to 600,000 and some 800,000 doses.

“But in Nigeria on July 8, the last dose of vaccine was used at Lagos island maternity because we can track and know on daily basis when it was remaining 5000 doses to 3000 doses to 160 and to the last dose that was used.

We can track the vaccines to be sure that what goes to Nigerians are genuine vaccines and if you watch, it is the only vaccine that we have not given access to people to bring into the country so that they won’t bring what is fake.

“And anything that comes into this country stays about five to seven days in National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and they do their special final analysis to be sure that this is what we are expecting.

“So, you can be proud of your country that at least for once we are getting it right doing something.

“The second phase of vaccination that is ongoing now, we have assured the world that none of the vaccines we have received will expire on us as a country.

And it is because of the performance in the first phase that we are even having the privileges of receiving the vaccines we are receiving at this moment.

“Let Nigerians know that COVID is real.”

The governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, on Monday, has announced that the State Government will begin the vaccination of her residents against the dreaded COVID-19 pandemic and the third wave.

The State Government had distributed AstraZeneca vaccines in the first phase of vaccination to the residents.

Briefing State House Correspondents at Lagos House, Alausa, Ikeja, on the situation report on the COVID-19 management in the State, Sanwo-Olu, expressed his resolve to fight the pandemic.

He said: “It is costly and requires hard work and commitment from a wide range of stakeholders and partners, sacrificing their time and energy and resources on multiple fronts to slow down the virus, and eventually to tame it.

As a government, we have taken substantial steps to arrest this third wave in its tracks, most notable of them is the increased monitoring and enforcement embarked upon by members of the incident command structure.

“As of August 21, Lagos had recorded 70,563 confirmed cases of COVID-19. Of this number, 60,716 have recovered in-community, and 4,387 are currently being managed actively in-community. About 5,551 patients have been admitted into our various COVID-19 care centres, with 506 registered fatalities, 135 of which happened in this current third wave.

“Lagos State received its allocation of 299,992 doses of the Moderna vaccine on August 18 for the second phase of the national vaccination campaign, which will begin this Wednesday, August 25.

We have developed an elaborate plan to administer the vaccines in 150 centres. The increase in the number of centres is to prevent the gathering of large crowds and ensure the campaign does not itself become a super-spreader event. We will ensure the administration is based solely on appointments which should be done through nphcda.vaccination.gov.ng.

Our ultimate goal is to vaccinate 60 per cent of our residents in good time.”

Speaking further, the governor said: “To help us better manage the pandemic, we have invested in strengthening the capacity of the Lagos State Biobank to sequence positive cases. Sequencing allows us to identify the predominant strains of the COVID-19 virus in our environment and provides us with information on how to better respond to the pandemic.

“We are also looking to increase our oxygen production to 1,000 cylinders per day since it is a vital requirement for the management of the most severe cases. We have seen a gradual increase in the uptake of oxygen from 75 cylinders per day at the beginning of this third wave, to over 400 cylinders per day currently.

With our modelling suggesting that we may be required even more oxygen supply over the next few weeks, we are exploring several ways of increasing our oxygen capacity, including partnering with the private sector. At the moment we have two functioning oxygen plants, at the IDH in Yaba, and in Gbagada, and are looking forward to shortly taking delivery of two additional oxygen plants being built in Lagos State by the Federal Government. Our target is an oxygen supply capacity of 1,000 cylinders per day.

“I appeal for your cooperation. The threat of the Coronavirus is not theoretical, it is very real. We have been on the journey now for about 18 months, and we are all witnesses to the immense disruptions we have seen on every front, not to talk of the many lives that have been lost.

We are all united in our desire to put this virus and the pandemic behind us as quickly as we can, but this will not happen if we continue to disregard health protocols. We also cannot afford to allow a sense of fatigue to set in. The consequences of this will be enormous.