Minister Begs Nigerians To Take COVID-19 Vaccines When They Arrive

The Federal Government has pleaded with Nigerians to ensure they make themselves available to take the COVID-19 vaccine when it arrives the country on Tuesday.

The Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire, made the plea during the launch of the T.E.A.C.H strategy for the COVID-19vaccination, in Abuja.

T.E.A.C.H. is an acronym for a 5-point strategy developed by the vaccination implementing arm of the Federal Ministry of Health & the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA).

It stands for: T: Traditional Vaccination Campaign Roll-out, E: Electronic Self-Registration by Eligible Nigerians, A: Assisted Electronic Registration of Eligible Nigerians, C: Concomitant Vaccination alongside Electronic Registration, H: House-to-House Electronic Registration.

Speaking on the relevance of the vaccine, Ehanire said it is a critical part of Nigeria’s strategy to counter the COVID-19 pandemic and stop transmission of the virus, therefore pleading with Nigerians to take it.

“I urge all eligible Nigerians to take the #COVID19 vaccination when it is their turn. This is the only way we can achieve herd immunity to stop the community transmission of this deadly virus,” Ehanire said.

Meanwhile, the country is due to receive its first batch of the AstraZeneca vaccines under the COVAX facility. The vaccines would be administered first to front line health care workers who provide essential care to “severe COVID-19patients”.

The minister further warned that vaccines not approved by the National Agency for Food Drugs Administration (NAFDAC) were dangerous and would be seized by the customs and drug enforcement agency.

Ehanire added that, “no private hospital or organization has experience with handling this type of vaccine and certainly no experience in vaccine application that NPHCDA has, hence the introduction of the electronic management of immunization data is critical to addressing challenges with integrity and quality data and ultimately, primary health care data.”

Nigeria will join other African countries such as South Africa, Ghana, Ivory Coast towards kick-starting the immunization programme.