COVID-19: FG Says States That Can’t Guarantee Safety Of Vaccines Won’t Get

The Federal Government has warned that states with no up to standard cold chain store, one of the key criteria to ensure vaccine safety won’t get any share of AstraZeneca/Oxford COVID-19 vaccines.

Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Faisal Shuaib, disclosed this at the second edition of State House weekly briefing which was focused on Nigeria’s Response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in the last one year, and especially the National Vaccination Response.

Shuaib said, “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 cold 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.”