President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.); Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo; the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha; and other prominent Nigerians will be among the first set to receive the COVID-19 vaccine on live television to help drive awareness, The Executive Director, National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Faisal Shuaib says.
“On Tuesday, I mentioned that we will like to see a situation where Mr President, the Vice President, the SGF, critical leaders come and take the vaccine in full glare of the public to demonstrate that this vaccine is safe. So, we have to make provisions for those. But even in developed countries, what we have seen is that apart from the prioritisation of health workers, you have to also identify critical leaders that you don’t want them to be wiped off by the virus.” He said at the weekly press briefing by the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 in Abuja on Thursday.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Nigeria intends to get 42 million COVID-19 vaccines to cover one fifth of its population through the global COVAX scheme.
The initial vaccines would come as part of Nigeria’s plan to inoculate 40 per cent of the population in 2021 and another 30 per cent in 2022, with 100,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine arriving by the end of January 2021.