The federal government has announced that the COVID-19 vaccine will be administered without any charges on Nigerians when vaccination begins.
This was revealed by the National coordinator of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, Sani Aliyu. He explained that through the GAVI arrangement, it is guaranteed that over 40 million Nigerians will be vaccinated.
Aliyu said, “Yesterday, the president gave the PTF the mandate to proceed with preparations with regard to the vaccine. “The president has also given us a marching order that the COVID-19 vaccine be available in Nigeria.
“Making use of the GAVI arrangement, we already have assurance that 20 per cent of our population will be accommodated by GAVI in the vaccine.
“We don’t need to pay for that and this will cover 40 million Nigerians or so. But we have to pay for the operations and the logistics associated with it”.
He continued: “We are also planning to pay for an additional 20 to 40 per cent. In general, over the next two years, at least 70 percent of the population needs to be vaccinated before we can have enough herd immunity.The Pfizer vaccine is one of the most effective vaccines at the moment”. He added.
When asked if the vaccine would be administered for free, he said, “Of course, of course.”
He further urged Nigerians not to desist from adhering to provisional safety measures already in place just because of the vaccine.
“Just to make it clear to the general public, even if we have the vaccine available tomorrow in Nigeria, the epidemic will not change.”
“We still need to apply the protective measures we have been advising right from beginning. Vaccines alone will not change it. If you look at the time it takes the vaccine to take effect, the first dose will take about 12 days to have an anti-body response. The second dose takes a week. In all, it takes a month for one to have adequate immunity,” he explained.
