COVID-19: Again FG assures Nigeria will be beneficiary of vaccines

Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja

The Federal Government has again assured that it is working to ensure that Nigerians will be beneficiaries of the COVID-19 vaccine when available.

This is even as it said that it is supporting National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control to reach the International Maturity Level as well as encourage researchers to work towards the development of vaccine candidates.

The Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, said this at the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 briefing on Thursday in Abuja.

Ehanire informed that Nigeria also participated in a World Health Organisation(WHO), African Regional Conference, held virtually and chaired by the Minister of Health of the Congo, which centered around COVID-19 and included progress in the conversation around vaccines and in implementing the African Region sickle cell strategy.

“We shall sustain our interest in developments around covid-19 around the world and seek opportunities to exchange ideas with countries and organizations investing in new knowledge”, he said.

The minister said as plans are on reopen the economy, relax local and international air travel to support restoration of livelihoods, he noted that experience from other countries has shown that COVID-19 infection rates went gone up and in some cases, dramatically.

He reiterated that the “onus lies not only with the Ministry of Health, but is a shared responsibility with the populace. Our safest, easiest and cheapest option of achieving a balance remains adherence to non-pharmaceutical measures, as we have preached so many times. With these measures, we can balance or uphold our indices”, he added.

Ehanire also informed that training and retraining on infection prevention and Control was ongoing in all health facilities as well as ensuring availability of PPEs as an investment to continue the reduction in health worker infections.

Ehanire called on health workers to ensure judicious and prudent used of these PPEs materials, while observing full Information Prevention Control (IPC), measures.