States yet to meet criteria for safety won’t get Covid-19 vaccines –FG

EXECUTIVE Director, National Primary Health Care Development Agency has disclosed why  President Buhari and Vice-President Osinbajo will be the first two Nigerians to receive shots of Covid-19 shots on Saturday.

Faisal said the first and second citizens would take the vaccines to dissipate vaccine hesitancy amongst Nigerians.

He also  said states that have not met the criteria for vaccine safety won’t get share of the about four million doses of AstraZeneca/Oxford COVID-19 vaccines in the country.

The NAPHCDA director disclosed this at a State House briefing in Abuja today.

Shuaib said, “After we are able to get our strategic leaders to publicly demonstrate that these vaccines are safe, the plan is to now go to the state level to start the launch at the treatment centres of the states and also get strategic leaders such as governors to publicly take the vaccines.

“By the time all of these happen, we will have finished all of the necessary preparations, we will have created a dashboard that will track very carefully the status of the preparedness of the states.

“We will not be sending vaccines to the states that have not fulfilled all of the criteria that will ensure that if the vaccines get to the states, they are going to be safe.

“For example, we have communicated to the states that they have to wrap up their security around their cold stores because these are very valuable vaccines and we do not want a situation where vaccines are taken to the states and criminal elements take advantage to vandalise these stores.

“We are also aware that during the #EndSARS vandalisation, there were some cold stores that actually suffered. I know that the state governors are trying to fix those but we have to verify that those are ready to receive our vaccines.

“We are working with the sub-national level; we are in conversation with the Nigerian Governors’ Forum to see how Nigerians can rapidly get their vaccines. It is very critical that we roll out rapidly so that we can cut into any kind of mutation that can lead to the development of resistance against our vaccines.”