By Abdulrahman Abdullahi
The Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, has convened a meeting with commissioners for health in the 36 states as part of efforts to ensure effective sharing and distribution of COVID-19 vaccine.
The Plateau State Commissioner for Health, Dr Nimkong Lar, and his counterpart in Cross River State, Dr Betta Edu, who disclosed this in an interview on Wednesday, said the meeting would hold in Abuja on Thursday (today).
It was gathered that some commissioners met the Federal Government officials on Wednesday over the distribution of the vaccine.
Nigeria on Tuesday received 3.94 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, becoming the third African country to benefit from the COVAX facility after Ghana and Ivory Coast.
COVAX, an initiative co-led by the Vaccine Alliance, GAVI and the World Health Organisation. seeks to ensure equitable access to a COVID-19 vaccine by dividing about two billion doses across 92 low-and middle-income countries.
While receiving the vaccine on behalf of the Federal Government, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and Chairman Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, Boss Mustapha, had said, “The consignment of the vaccine is just 3.924 million doses of the expected 16 million doses from the COVAX Facility.”
Recall that the National Primary Health Care Development Agency had on Monday commenced online registration of Nigerians interested in taking COVID-19 vaccination.