From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
The Federal Government has said there were enough vaccines already to cover over 70 per cent of the country’s population before the end of 2022.
Secretary to the government of the federation (SGF), and Chairman of the Presidential Steering Committee on COVID-19, Boss Mustapha, made the disclosure the National COVID-19 Summit aimed at bringing all stakeholders together to discuss the Theme: “Pushing Through the Last Mile to End the Pandemic and Build Back Better”.
According to him, the vaccines are safe, hence, “it is better and safer to be vaccinated against the virus”.
He explained that the summit was to create the opportunity to identify successes, gaps and lessons learnt so far in Nigeria’s national response to the pandemic since March 2020 to date.
The summit, he added is also aimed at developing strategies to actualise the international commitments towards ending COVID-19 before the end of 2022.
“Today, we are here to assess the level of impact of our national response and develop strategies as we push through the last mile to end the pandemic while we build back better.
“There is no gainsaying that the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria, which was triggered when the index case was confirmed on the 27th of February 2020, precipitated significant disruptions to the healthcare system and socio-economic lives of Nigerians.
”Due to the evolving dynamics of COVID-19 pandemic with progressive mutations of the virus to more transmissible and deadly variants, the international community has corroborated the insinuation that the pandemic will persist for a few more years.
“This understanding has impelled world leaders recently to come to a conclusion that if efforts are not renewed and aggressive measures are not taken, COVID-19 pandemic will continue to ravage humanity well longer than earlier envisaged. Hence the need to adopt an ambitious (but cautious) agenda to end the COVID-19 pandemic by the year 2022.
“Nigeria has invested in enough vaccines that can cover over 70% of our population before the end of 2022. These vaccines are safe and efficacious, hence it is better and safer to be vaccinated against this virus, now.”
Mustapha said the summit is a follow-up towards Nigeria’s commitment to the ambitious global agenda/movement to end the COVID-19 pandemic by 2022 and build back better.
“Global efforts at ending COVID-19 pandemic are intrinsically linked to the call for nations of the world to take steps towards strengthening their health system and bio-security- which will make for better pandemic preparedness and the ability to respond more robustly and swiftly to future pandemics,” the PAC boss said.
He asked stakeholders to encourage all eligible persons to get vaccinated and keep observing the necessary preventive COVID-19 measures.
Meanwhile, the SGF has said the country has so far accessed 12 million doses of vaccines even as it expects more by the end of February 2022.
He made the disclosure while presenting the report of the national response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the country so far.
He said: “With the best of efforts, Nigeria, has so far been able to access 12 million doses of vaccines going into the third phase of the vaccines roll out. More is expected to be available by the end of February 2022. The objective of the third phase of the vaccine rollout is to ramp up vaccination to 50% of the eligible population.
“As at today 6th December 2021, the statistics on vaccination present the following: Fully Vaccinated with second dose: 3,775,500 (3.4% of the target population); Partially Vaccinated with one dose: 7,080,878 (6.3% of the targeted eligible population).
“The world has gradually moved towards vaccines mandate and vaccination as a precondition for admission into certain territories and countries. Only recently, the Federal Government announced the vaccine mandate for all its employees and directed its implementation with effect from 1st December 2021.”