The Federal Government, has described as fake news, reports in some quarters that it has budgeted the sum of N10.6 billion to transport COVID-19 vaccine to the 36 states and the 774 local government areas and the Federal Capital Territory and it’s five area councils.
Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Faisal Shuaib, debunked this in an interview on Saturday, after the brief ceremony, where President Muhammadu Buhari together with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo received the first doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
Shuaib explained that the Private sector-led Coalition Against COVID-19 (CACOVID), has already taken up the responsibility of distributing the vaccines to states at no cost the government.
He said: “I mean, I’m hearing this from you for the first time. It doesn’t make any sense that on the one hand, we’ve communicated very clearly to Nigerians that the Coalition Against COVID-19 (CACOVID), a private sector initiative, has provided a cargo plane that will help deliver the vaccines from Abuja to all states that have functional airports. For those that do not have functional airports, there is a delivery van that will convey the vaccines from those airports to the states without functionality.
“I do not see how that is going to cost N10 billion. So there is no truth in that information.
“The truth is what I have told you, which is that CACOVID has taken up the responsibility of delivering the vaccines from Abuja to the states. The only cost we’re going to incur is the cost of delivering the vaccines from any airport to nearby states that don’t have functional airports. Clearly that cannot be N10.6 billion.”
When asked what the actual cost would be, he said “you can do the math … and you know that it cannot be anything close to a billion naira right?”
“So I believe that CACOVID has already identified that cost as something they are going to take off. I do not know how much it’s going to cost them, but that is something that they have already identified as a cost they will bear and we’re working together with them.
“So it is not correct to say that the federal government is going to be expending N10.6 billion to transport vaccines to the state. That is incredulous.”
Why AstraZeneca
On the latest development on the 100,000 doses of Pfizer vaccines, the NPHCDA boss said: “So what happened was that there was a committee that met at global level, and took the decision that it made more sense for Nigeria to get 16 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines rather than 100,000 doses of Pfizer.
“Hundred thousand doses of Pfizer is a drop in the ocean and given that the AstraZeneca vaccine is more suited to our cold chain environments; from +2 to +8 °C. Not only do we have the necessary coldchain equipment, but also our health workers have the capacity to manage vaccines of that temperature.
He adds that what matters is to get vaccines that are more suitable to Nigerians.
Lateefah Ibrahim
