New Telegraph

PTF: Frontline health-workers to be vaccinated first as vaccines arrive today

COVID-19

As the nation receives the first batch of COVID- 19 vaccines today, the Presidential Task Force (PTF) has said that frontline health-workers and strategic leadership would be the first to be vaccinated across the country.

 

The PTF also said 70 per cent of the nation’s population would be vaccinated in the next two years (2021- 2022) just as it announced a ban on importation of the vaccines into the country by the private sector.

 

The PTF Chairman and Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha, in his comments at a briefing in Abuja, yesterday, warned that taking the vaccines alone cannot be the solution except combined with the observation of the non pharmaceutical intervention protocols.

 

He, however, assured Nigerians that the COVID vaccines from the COVAX facility arriving Nigeria today from Mumbai, India would be safe and efficacious. Mustapha in his comments commemorating the one year outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic in the country, listed the achievements of the PTF while also itemizing its challenges.

 

Achievements recorded by the PTF, according to him, were in the areas of policy decisions, human capacity building, building of infrastructure including the establishment of 132 laboratories, support to sub-nationals with the allocation of N1 billion each to 34 states, N10 billion to Lagos and N5 billion to Kano State.; building collaboration; adopting testing as a strategy; building other support capacity; recalibration of the economy; adoption of President Muhammadu Buhari as the ECOWAS COVID Champion and transparency and accountability.

 

Listed as the challenges within the last one year by the SGF were the Second Wave and Virulent variants; rising number of cases detected since November, 2020; rising fatalities; increasing need for Oxygen and skepticism and denial.

 

Others were abandonment of responsibility of managing other ailments by medical facilities and attendant consequences; fear of stigmatisation ; subnational recalcitrance; enforcement of the provisions of the Executive Order; fake news; managing the land borders; cases of non-compliance with protocols by in-bound travelers and increasing cases of fake PCR certificates.

 

Mustapha gave the statistics of the COVID-19 infections in the last one year to include 155,076 reported cases, 132,566 discharged; 1,485,103 tested and 1902 fatalities.

 

He put the Case Fatality Ratio at 1.2. He also acknowledged the support of private and public entities including- CACOVID; NNPC, CBN, corporate organisations, the security agencies, all MDAs, airlines, the Armed Forces, international community, development partners, frontline health-workers, media and others

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