Nigeria Can’t Afford to Become a Pariah Nation, First Batch of Vaccines Expected End of January,  National Covid Coordinator Says

Dr Sani Aliyu, the National Coordinator of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 has said the first batch of the Covid vaccines will arrive in Nigeria towards the end of January.

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Aliyu was a guest on ARISE News and told the station that a lot of work is going on with the National Primary healthcare development agency to ensure the timely arrival of the vaccines.

“In terms of when it is going to be available, there is a lot of work with the National Primary healthcare development agency, and Mr President also directed the PTF about two weeks ago to get involved with the nitty-gritty of making sure that the vaccines do come in a timely manner,” Dr Sani told ARISE News.

He further said that “we are expecting that the first batch of vaccines possibly towards the end of January, but there’s a lot of work going on with our partners, in particular, Gavi and Nigeria should not be left behind.

“The control of the pandemic will rely not only on full compliance of the non-pharmaceutical interventions but also the availability and acceptance of vaccination programs.

“We cannot allow ourselves to become a pariah nation, we don’t really have a choice when it comes to vaccines, we have to vaccinate our public especially those that are vulnerable the elderly, those that are most likely to have severe illness and we will definitely not be left behind as a country.”

By Abel Ejikeme

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