- * As FG Dismisses Report Of N10B Cost Of Distribution Of Vaccine
By Juliet Nwabiani Okafor (Managing Editor) @AuntyJVIN
Following a general apprehension that the Covid-19 AstraZeneca vaccine administered on President Muhammadu Buhari and his Vice, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo on Saturday may have been having a severe adverse effect on them, the Presidency has assured that they are in relatively good condition.
Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, while responding to media enquiries on whether or not, the President and his Vice were experiencing some side effects of the vaccine jab, Shehu allayed such misconceptions and anxiety about the safety of the vaccine.
The presidential aide explained that “After he got his jab, the President felt normal and went about doing his job. If there are side effects that follow, we will be open about that but so far there is nothing of a side effect, serious or mild on the President. He is carrying on as normal.
“We hope this will help to send a strong message among the people, especially those grappling with hesitancy about the efficacy and safety of the vaccine,” Shehu stated in a statement.
Meanwhile, President Buhari had shortly after taking his dosage of the vaccine jab on Saturday on live television, advised all Nigerians eligible for the anti-corona virus immunization to take the jab for their individual protection from the virus attack.
Director General of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr Faisal Shuaib, said on Friday during the launch of the vaccination Programme that the inoculation of the Nigeria's first and second citizens, will however encourage more Nigerians to embrace the Covid-19 AstraZeneca vaccination exercise.
Shuaib also said that the members of the federal executive council and other officials of government will be administered their own vaccination on Monday. The official launch of the immunization Programme on Friday March 5, 2021, was opened for frontline workers.
In a related development, the Federal Government has dismissed a newspaper report that it will be expending N10.6 billion on the distribution of the 3.9 million doses of Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to the 36 states.
Director General of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr Faisal Shuaib, who spoke to State House correspondents on Saturday in Abuja, described the report as fake news. He stated that the private sector-led Coalition Against COVID-19 (CACOVID), had already undertaken to distribute the vaccines to states at no cost to the government.
He said: ”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.”
According to Shuaib, the government might not spend anything near a billon naira in transporting the vaccines from such airport to the affected States. “You can do the math on the back of an envelope 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,” Shuaib added. (With additional report from NAN). NNL.